Surviving Detention
by theWeekendSquared
Summary: High school stereotypes collide when the classic nerd, jock, prep, rebel, diva, and outsider get shunted sideways into their school's twisted version of hell. Unfortunately they'll have to work together to make it out alive. Literally. Is being imprisoned together enough to survive detention? FINALLY COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**So I recently watched the Breakfast Club for the 1,687th time and I realized that this was a great idea to play with and modernize... I do not own the Breakfast Club or MR but I hope you guys like this story! **

* * *

**_MAXINE_**

"Don't forget your phone, honey. You're going to be late!"

I ran down the stairs, paused, and ran back up. I remembered to put on my socks, but not my phone! Where were my priorities? "Mom, it's detention. We're not allowed to have phones, hmm?"

Valencia Martinez, my mom, sighed as I tucked my iPhone into my back pocket anyway. "So this school is making you go to detention on a Saturday for _eight_ hours? What is wrong with the California school system?"

I shrugged as I slipped my shoes – fake Converse, because real Converse were too mainstream (read: expensive)–on. "Dr. Gunther-Hagen wants the kids in detention to actually ponder about things. He wants them to _realize who they are_." My voice dripped with sarcasm.

My mom sighed. "Just… one week in your new school and you already have a detention under your belt."

I looked at my watch. "Crap! It's almost seven! I gotta go!" I flew out the door and dived into my blue VW Jetta.

…

**_NICK_**

"_WITH THE LIGHTS OUT, IT'S LESS DANGEROUS! HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US! I FEEL STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS! HERE WE ARE NOW –_"

"Can you turn it down?"

I turned around and glared at the girl in the silver Mercedes convertible next to me, who was looking at me like I had physically assaulted her. _Smells like Teen Spirit_ continued to blare out from the stereo of my vintage black Camaro. "No." I said, pushing my shades higher up on my face.

The girl honked at me and I took the shades off to glare at her. She was wearing about three inches of makeup, really tight clothes, and had six-inch long nails. I hated her instantly. "Listen, emo boy. I did not get stuck in this traffic jam to listen to some emo music –"

I smirked. Emo music? Clearly she didn't understand what _real_ music was. I closed the window on her and turned up the volume to eardrum –shattering.

As the light finally turned green, I continued singing along.

"_I'm worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed. Our little group has always been and always will until the end…" _

…

**_JASON_**

"You sure you'll be okay?"

I shrunk down in my seat in the hopes that no one I knew would see me. "I'll be fine." I muttered.

"I packed your lunch. Tuna sandwich on rye bread, just the way you like it."

I shrank down further so that all anyone would be able to see was my forehead, which was brilliantly red. "Fine, Mom." Jeez. You get detention once, and your parents think you're magically a delinquent. What they didn't understand was, I couldn't be a delinquent even if I tried. I mean, my _mom's _dropping me off at detention, for God's sake!

I shrank down even further as a black Camaro pulled into the school parking lot, stereo blasting at max volume. My mom winced as the dude inside performed some major asshole parking, taking up two parking spots, and slammed the door of his car. He stepped out and I saw that this dude was literally the measure of what a kid in detention should look like. Black leather jacket, some obscure band on his t-shirt, hair so black it had to have been dyed, and shades. He smirked when he saw my mom's minivan and I shrunk down so much farther that I slid off the seat.

"Jason, is he also in detention?" My mom asked worriedly, watching as the badass dude walked nonchalantly towards the school door.

"Well, I doubt he's here to dust the furniture." I grumbled, taking the sack lunch my mom packed for me and shoving it in my pocket. I opened the door to leave and looked at her worried face. "Mom, I'll be fine, okay? I'm sixteen. I can handle myself."

…

**_MONIQUE_**

I pulled into the school parking lot, fuming. That asshole at the traffic light had just, like _ruined_ my day. I mean, who doesn't even have the courtesy to lower the volume of their fucking death metal music which sounds like trash?

On top of that, I only got 72 likes on my latest Instagram post. I posted that cute pic of my new shoes last night! Almost twelve hours ago! Why don't people like cute shoes? Are they not cute enough? I looked down at my feet, at my new Gucci stilettos. Yes, it was hard to drive in heels, but it was worth it to look _fab_.

I closed the door to my pride and joy –my silver Mercedes –and frowned up at the school. Gross, school. I couldn't _believe_ I had detention. I had to go to school at freaking seven in the morning to ponder about myself? What kind of punishment was that?

I mean, I could've been sleeping. Or I could've been getting a manicure and a nice massage. I pulled down my miniskirt, which was starting to hike up. You want to show off your legs, but not your ass.

I took a deep breath and started to walk towards the school, towards eight hours of hell.

…

**_JAMES_**

"Whatever you did to get detention, don't do it again," my dad said sternly, pulling up in front of the school.

"Obviously I won't do it again. Next time, it'll be because of something else." I joked, faltering at my dad's no-nonsense expression.

"I mean it, James. Tomfoolery is not tolerated in our household."

"Bad haircuts are not tolerated in our household, either, but that didn't stop you." I muttered under my breath.

"What did you say?"

I hunched down in my seat. "Nothing."

He unlocked the door of his truck for me. "Behave. When this is over with I want to hear that you've actually learned something from detention, instead of you spending every Saturday here for no apparent reason."

I bit my lip to refrain from saying something that would get my ass kicked into next Tuesday. "Yes." I muttered, pulling open the door and stepping out.

…

**_CELESTE_**

"Remember you have cheer after detention!" my mom yelled out the window of her red VW Beetle. "Make sure no one finds out where you were. Remember to be –"

"Perfect, I know." I said, standing outside the door, rolling my eyes.

My mom gave me _that look_. That look that said plainly, _You're not good enough_. I hated that look so much it made me want to punch a tree, or something. And I didn't even have anything against trees. "You have a strand of hair out of place, Celeste."

I tucked the stray hair behind my ear. Bite me, mom. "I'll fix it."

"You –"

"I said, _I'll fix it_." I snapped.

My mom gave me one last patronizing look and sped off in her car. I was left to stare up at the imposing walls of my school, the hell that was my home seven hours a day on weekdays, and apparently on Saturdays, too. I saw a red-headed guy getting out of a monstrous-looking truck, looking harassed. I smirked and climbed the stairs of Newton High School. I put on my best smile as I entered. I was a cheerleader, after all.

* * *

**I'm open to suggestions about characterization so PM me or review if you have ideas! **


	2. Chapter 2

If he was being honest, he hated them all. He hated every student to set foot in Newton Academy. He hated the… the whatever-they-were-called, the _jocks_, with their muscles bulging out of their too-tight varsity jackets. He hated the _rebels_, who thought they were too cool for class and would most certainly turn out to be homeless bums or drug dealers after the glory years. He hated the _nerds_, who constantly fretted about their 5.0 GPAs and their thousands of scholarship opportunities, who would be lucky if they even got a crummy office job after college.

He hated himself, most of all. He questioned his career choice every single minute of every day. Why would someone who hated children become a high school principal?

It was obvious that the kids hated him, too. He didn't care. In fact, he preferred that they hated him. Better to be hated than to be adored. Better to be loathed and feared than adored and loved. This way, he could get them to do what he wanted. This way, he could get them to shut up quicker, to stay away from him. It was best that way, for everyone.

…

**_NICK_**

I looked around the room as I entered. Hmm. Looks like I was the first one. I smirked. Punctual to a detention. There was some kind of symbolic irony in that, wasn't there? I sat down at a chair in the back of the library and put my feet up on the desk. I pulled out my headphones and jammed them into my ears. I closed my eyes, listening to the sweet, sweet tunes of Nirvana, and hoped to God this detention wouldn't scar me for life

**_MONIQUE_**

As soon as I entered the library I groaned. It was empty except for one chair in the back. And guess who was sitting there?

It was that emo asshole boy who had cut me off at the traffic light. He was listening to music again, but with headphones this time, thank God. He opened one eye, saw me, smirked, and closed his eyes again. I made a face at him and sat down primly in the front, as far away from him as I could. No one seemed to be here yet, so I pulled out my phone and started texting.

**_JASON_**

I paused outside the door of the library, sweating slightly. I wasn't a criminal. Who knows what kind of people I'd find in there? Future druggies, master criminals, war lords… Maybe I shouldn't've watched so much Game of Thrones yesterday. I looked down at my clothes and winced. _Why _did I pick today to wear my Doctor Who shirt?

I pushed open the door to find that there were only two people in the room, and both of them seemed to be occupied. I let out a long breath and picked a seat close to the front, but not too front because I didn't want to seem too eager. If I got through this alive, I'd never watch porn again.

**_MAXINE_**

I turned off the stereo of my car, regretfully stopping in the midst of the chorus of Chocolate by the 1975. Enough games. I had to get to detention.

I picked up my phone off the passenger seat and headed towards the library, where the detention was supposed to take place. It was cold in the hallway and I shivered in my oversized flannel. I found this beauty in the men's section of Hollister, but no one would know… except men that shopped in Hollister. I normally didn't go for big, trendy mall stores, but I _lived_ in flannels and jeans.

I took a seat in the middle-ish back-ish. None of these people were people I'd talked to before, or even seen. This would be interesting.

**_JAMES_**

I sauntered into the library like I owned the place. Sizing up the room, I realized that I knew only one person here –Monique. And she was _not_ someone I wanted to talk to right now. Instead of sitting near her, I sat smack dab in the midst of the tables and chairs, kicking my shoes off and putting my feet on a chair. The girl in the oversized flannel sitting right behind me gave me a patronizing look, and I winked at her. Come to think of it, I felt like I'd seen that flannel somewhere. I felt like I owned that flannel.

**_CELESTE_**

With a bright (and phony) smile, I sat down in the front, next to a blond boy with large glasses and a Doctor Who t-shirt on. Be perfect, I reminded myself. I straightened out my cheer uniform, ironing out any undesirable crinkles that might have popped up, and noticed that the Doctor Who boy was looking at me surreptitiously. I smiled. "Hi," I offered.

"Hi." He grunted. I sighed and tucked another stray hair behind my ear. My hair was falling apart. This would be a long day, I was sure of it.

* * *

**Good? Bad? Ugly? I know it was short, but I'm just setting up the characters right now. The _real_ stuff has yet to begin... **


	3. Chapter 3

Vice Principal Gunther-Hagen walked stiffly towards the library door, mentally cursing himself as he went. Nothing in his life would be worth the torture he was certain to endure the moment he opened that door. He had heard there were six of them, six sniveling little brats that he would have to make sure didn't kill themselves by the end of the eight hours.

He pushed open the door and stared at them all. They were spread out as if they didn't know each other and had no intention of doing so. This might at least make his job easier.

"All right, listen up," he barked. "You all are here on a Saturday morning, for detention. You know why you're here, and you know that it's probably not worth it to do that stupid thing again unless you want to spend every Saturday of your life dusting old Shakespeare books instead of your idea of partying."

He walked around, stopping on front of the girl who was texting. "This includes frat parties."

He walked over to the red-haired boy in the middle who was playing paper football with himself. "Ravers."

The cheerleader was next. She was even wearing her uniform and Gunther-Hagen had to try his hardest not to give a derisive snort. "Football games."

GH made eye contact with the boy wiping his glasses sitting next to the cheerleader. "Star Wars marathons."

The vice principal made his way to the blond girl in the middle of the room who was rolling and unrolling the sleeves of her flannel. "Poetry slams."

"Or whatever the hell you do." He nodded to the black-haired boy in the back who was smirking at him. "Take your headphones off when an adult is talking to you."

The boy smirked but removed his headphones. "I'd be _honored_ to, _sir_."

GH had no patience for these twerps. He briskly walked towards the front of the library, assuming authority position, and clapped his hands. "You will write an essay of one thousand words, explaining in detail who you think you are and why you are here. And when I say _essay_, I mean _essay_, not a string of profanity or vulgar drawings. If your essay is not satisfactory by the end of these eight hours, you will be back next Saturday, and you'll have a _lot_ more fun. Any questions?" He winced as the black-haired boy in the back raised his hand. "Yes?"

"Has anyone told you that you look like Sting after he got indisposed?" the boy said. The red-haired boy smirked.

"What is your name?" GH asked him, ignoring the smirking.

"Nicholas Walker." the boy said, casually putting his feet up on the desk.

"Well, Walker, I'll be seeing you next Saturday at eight in the morning. Any other questions?" He glared at the other students, who either looked at the ground or at their fingers. "Good. No talking to each other. Start writing."

He left abruptly, closing the door behind him.

* * *

**_NICK_**

I hated that guy so much it made me want to stick a sharp stick up his –

"Ahem," a voice said, above me. I opened my eyes and looked up to see that blonde cheerleader girl standing in front of my desk. I took my feet off the table.

"What can I do for you?" I asked glibly.

She looked at me, annoyed. "Why are you trying to provoke the vice principal? He might take his wrath out on all of us now."

"Hark who's talking," I said, smirking. "Little Miss Princess is breaking the rules, talking to lil' ol' me."

She flushed angrily. "I _know_ he said no talking. _I _can follow the rules, unlike some people. I just wanted to know why you're being such a huge dick."

"I'm sorry, did you just say I had a huge dick?"

"Oh, my God." The redhead boy sitting a few rows ahead of me turned around to glare at me as well. "Can you lay off of her? No one's happy about being in this hellhole, you know."

"Excuse me, I was minding my own fucking business until she came up to me," I snapped. I turned to the cheerleader. "Whaddya want, _angel_?"

"You're such a douche bag!" The cheerleader yelled, crossing her arms.

I clapped my hands to my mouth. "Oh, no, Miss Priss used a _cuss_ word! What are we going to do now? It's horrible! It's a tragedy!" I mimed fainting.

"Okay, you know what?" The redhead strode furiously up to my desk and slammed his hands down in front of me. "You think you're so cool? You think you're the shit and all that, sitting there in your thrift-store leather jacket with your stupid death metal music? Why can't you just lay off of her?"

The cheerleader glared at him. "Okay, who are you to protect me? I can handle myself! What, you think because I'm a girl I'm not capable of shit?"

"The guy's an asshole!" the redhead yelled. "Are you going to take his shit?"

"I think I'm the one not taking anyone's shit!" I yelled back.

"Well, you're basically a pile of shit!" the cheerleader yelled. She jabbed her finger into the redhead's chest. "And you are, too!"

We watched her stomp back to her original position and cross her arms and legs tightly. The boy sitting next to her, the one with the owl glasses and the Doctor Who shirt, looked at her nervously and back at us. The redhead boy glared at her for a moment and then stumped back to his own desk. I flipped them all off and slipped the headphones back onto my ears.

**_JAMES_**

What a fucking burnout.


	4. Chapter 4

_**JAMES**_

What a burnout.

I sat back in my seat and huffed. This was going to be such a _long_ day.

I casually looked over my shoulder at the cheerleader, who had her back turned away from the other people. The boy next to her looked at fearfully like he expected her to judo throw him or something.

I didn't know anyone here, even though I had seen them all around. The cheerleader was dispensable –I had probably seen her in the hallways at some point, with her blonde-haired friends, all in matching skirts and plaid sweaters. The guy in the Doctor Who shirt I had seen with his friends talking about Star Wars or some other shit while waiting for Physics Club to start. The girl in the plaid flannel… I had seen her putting up some poetry signs at some point. She seemed really quiet, probably because she didn't want to be noticed.

That left Monique, who I didn't really want to get into a conversation with at this time. For reasons. And that also left Nick Walker, who was possibly the biggest asshole I had ever had the misfortune to encounter in my life. Walking around with that stupid leather jacket, with his rock music blasting around, thinking he was all the shit. I _hated_ him.

And I knew he hated me.

I looked at the paper on the table, just waiting for words to be written on it. I looked at the papers around me. The Doctor Who boy had already begun writing a paragraph, but he was the only one. The girl in the flannel had folded a paper crane from a sheet of paper and was absently toying with it. The cheerleader had only written her name on the paper in perfect, print-like handwriting. I squinted and could barely make out her name –Celeste Wilkins. What a preppy name. Monique had just doodled flowers on her paper.

I didn't even want to look back at Walker. I sat back in my seat and sighed heavily. The others ignored me, although Monique's shoulders tensed. I had the feeling she was still sore about our last encounter.

A few minutes passed, and I couldn't stand it any longer. I crumped my paper into a ball and hurled it at the door. "This is stupid," I declared, standing up.

Behind me, Nick snorted.

Doctor Who looked at me nervously. "Stupid?"

"Why do we have to write an essay, anyways? We're already stuck in this prison." I grumbled.

"The –the principal told us we had to." Doctor Who stated, as though I didn't know that. I glared at him.

"Listen, Golden Boy, I know people like you would jump of a fucking cliff if a teacher told them to do it for extra credit. Your parents probably love you _so_ much because of your constant A-pluses and your complete lack of a tan because you spend all day, every day, poring over your Calculus textbook instead of enjoying the sun. Not everyone's like that." I snarled.

"Okay, now you're just being an asshole." Celeste said, turning around to frown at me. "He's right, you know. If we don't do this, we're going to get detention again. And I'm pretty sure _you_ of all people don't want that."

"I'm just saying, if a teacher told you to… I don't know, eat a stick of soap for extra credit, would you?"

"That's not even a valid example," Celeste said. "Why would a teacher ask him to eat a stick of soap?"

"Let _him_ answer," I said, irritated. "Would you, Doctor Who?"

The boy turned red. "My name's not Doctor Who –"

"I don't care." I said.

"Well, you should!" Celeste said. She turned to the boy. "What's your real name? Just so he won't keep calling you Doctor Who."

"Jason."

"See? His name's Jason," Celeste said, folding her arms and looking at me. "You know, just because someone's not as popular as you doesn't mean they don't deserve to be recognized as a person."

Jason opened his mouth to protest but a different, new voice cut him off. "What makes you think he's not popular?"

We turned around to see the girl in the flannel push aside her paper crane and stare at Celeste. "Excuse me?" Celeste asked.

"I'm asking you, what makes you think Jason's not popular?"

Celeste blushed red. "I didn't say he wasn't popular –"

"No, you just made the assumption that because he wears glasses and watches Doctor Who, he's automatically not as popular as the boy wearing jeans and a Hollister shirt, right?" The girl rolled up the sleeves of her flannel and gazed at Celeste, who turned redder.

"I just –well, is he?" Celeste spluttered. Served her right.

"I mean, what even defines 'popular'? Is it the number of friends you have? The number of Instagram followers you have? The number of people who kiss your ass in the hallway because they want to see if they can look up your cheerleading skirt?"

"In her defense, the cheerleading skirts are pretty high." Walker piped up from the corner. "But you're right. The whole school system is fucking stupid. Why should how 'popular' a person is be defined by how rich they are, or what kind of car they drive?"

"Right, because you support total anarchy." Celeste snapped. "I know your type. You're a rebel who tries to go against everything that's been set in stone for hundreds of years because you think it looks _cool_, but really you'd better watch yourself or you'll end up high and homeless in front of Wal-Mart before you can say, "Burnout."

Walker put his feet up on the desk. "I'd rather be a high, homeless man than a plastic Barbie doll who thinks she's entitled to everything just because she can flip her hair."

Celeste turned purple. "How _dare_ you talk to me like that?!"

"Oh, I dare. What're you going to do, run crying to your daddy because a big, bad boy upset you at school today?" Walker laughed. "You can't do anything about it, Princess."

"You know what, I know why I don't talk to you guys normally," The flannel shirt girl said, folding another piece of paper. "You're all assholes."

Monique sniffed. We all stared at her. She had been exceptionally quiet the whole time, which was extremely unusual for her. She looked up to find all our gazes on her. "What do you want me to say?" she demanded. "Say something stupid and shallow so you can all rag on how _privileged_ I am? How can you all make these assertions without having anything backed up by it?"

"Well, we don't need to," Walker pointed out. "All I need to do is take one look at your manicured nails, your perfectly styled hair, and your thousand-dollar outfit to know that you're shallower than the end of a public pool where all the kids pee in."

Monique slammed her phone down. "For your information, I do _not_ get everything that easily! I can't help it if people like Celeste, James, and I are popular and you're not! That's just the way high school works, and if you can't handle it, then don't whine about it to everyone who doesn't give a shit!"

I opened my mouth to say something and then closed it. Maybe I shouldn't talk for a while. We were obviously an extremely volatile group.

"So, you, James, and Cheerleader girl are popular, are you? And Jason, Nick, and I are what, pieces of dirt?" Flannel Girl demanded. "What makes you so 'popular'? What makes you so entitled to everything? If you were in Nick's position, wouldn't you feel the need to complain about it? The whole system's so messed up!"

"Especially because no one here even knows your name."

Flannel Girl paused for a second. "Max."

"Max? That's a boy's name," I said without thinking.

"Do you _have_ to be sexist on top of everything else?" Max said, irritated. "And Prep Girl didn't answer my question."

Monique tucked her hair behind her ear. "Why should I? You're obviously going to pick apart everything I say anyways. There is no one reason why it's like that. It just is. And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I have ten times more Twitter followers than you."

"Yeah, because that's only because you show your boobs and your ass in practically every picture." Walker said. "You're an attention hog. Why's that? Don't you get enough attention at home?"

Monique made eye contact with me and I hastily looked away. I wasn't going to get into that with her, not now. "Lay off of her," I muttered.

"Oh, look, the knight in shining armor's here to save the princesses! Why don't you be a man, and fuck off for a moment."

I stood up abruptly. "What did you say?"

Walker grinned. "Fuck. Off."

I balled my fists. "Do you _want_ your ass kicked?"

He stretched back in his chair. "Oh, that all depends on whether you want to be able to sit down at all for the rest of your life. What kind of fight training could you have, from Wii Sports?"

"I will _pulverize_ you," I say. "I've been playing soccer for six years –"

"And you just now made the traveling team, congrats, old boy." Walker said, grinning. "I'm really spiffed for you, I am."

"Why don't you just be a man and fight me?" I asked him quietly.

"Uh, guys, fighting's not allowed –" came a timid voice from the corner.

"Shut up, Jason." I said, my eyes trained on Walker. He looked at me, appraising me for a moment, then took his legs off the table and stood up.

"Fine."

* * *

**I know the chapters are kind of short but the thing is, I don't think longer chapters will really work for this story. Not the way I want to tell it, anyways. So about 1500 words per chapter is probably the norm, and each chapter will be told from one or more POVs. It'll be interesting to see how much each character will develop over the course of the detention, even though the chapters are pretty heavy on dialogue. That's only because most of the characterization will be indirect, with people inferring things about each other like Nick did with Monique. Of course it won't always be right, but that's what plot twists are for :)**

**In case you're still confused, however, here's everyone's stereotype:**

**Nick: rebel/bad boy (HAWT)**

**Monique: diva**

**Celeste: cheerleader**

**James: jock**

**Jason: brain**

**Max: the one who doesn't really fit in... so kind of like an outsider**

**Review please! Which character is most like you?**


	5. Chapter 5

**_JASON_**

I watched nervously as James and Nick glared at each other. They weren't really going to fight, were they? And if they broke the rules, would I also get in more trouble? I hope not. Only half an hour of detention had gone by, and I was already ready to leap out of my seat and kiss Gunther-Hagen's feet to keep from ever being back in here. I didn't belong here. And I got the funny feeling that neither did anyone else.

I focused on the essay. I had tried to write stuff so that it would look like I actually cared, unlike everyone else here, but so far all I had written was,

_Who I Am _

_By Jason Crane _

_ Indeed, who is anyone in the world? Does anyone even know who they are? Do people have to even be 'something'? Why can't the world be a freaking blob like in Doctor Who? Why don't I have a TARDIS, or a hot companion? Why did I get a B- on my last chem test? This paper is stupid. _

I wanted to crumple the damn thing up and burn it, but that wouldn't be the _academic_ thing to do.

...

**_MAXINE_**

I learned something valuable today. I learned that you can't even open your damn mouth to say something without everyone else blowing up and threatening each other.

I mean, it's like Congress in here.

I finished folding yet another paper crane and set it up on the desk with the others. Now I had a flock of paper cranes, all looking exactly the same. Hmm.

I glanced over at the boys. James and Nick. They were still glaring at each other, making empty threats. Boys were the same no matter where you went. I knew. I had been to over twelve different schools in the past ten years, and there were always people like this. It's like there was a universal law that said there always had to be a nerd, a prep, a jock, and a rebel guy. Could the universe be any more predictable?

...

**_NICK_**

I grinned at James. I knew he wasn't going to really hit me. Too chicken. I mean, _come on_. He probably came from an upper-class, privileged family and had everything he ever wanted. The only fighting experience he probably ever had was fighting with his sister over the TV remote control –with tickling. And here he was, thinking he could challenge _me_.

"Scared?" I asked him out of the corner of my mouth.

James angrily pushed his red hair out of his eyes. "You wish."

I feinted a punch towards him and he dove out of the way. I grinned. "Go back to the playground, chicken. I'll let you off with a warning –no one beats Nick Walker in a fight. No matter what."

James dusted himself off. "You don't have the guts to punch me, do you?"

The smile slipped off of my face. "What?"

"You're all talk. You're all talk, and nothing more. You say you're all the shit, and you can't even man up enough to punch me in the face."

"Why don't you just shut the fuck up." I growled, sitting back down.

James smirked. "Knew it."

I had to resist the urge to tackle that idiot and shove his face down a shit-filled toilet.

…

Gunther-Hagen sighed. The moment he had left the room he had heard talking. Here, sitting in his office, he could hear some shouting. Some more talking. He knew he had to go in there and shape those brats up.

He stood up and stared at his reflection in the mirror that the bubbly, irritating new English teacher had set up in the staff lounge. "Mirrors increase self-esteem and productivity!" the chirpy Brigid Dwyer had exclaimed, bouncing up and down. He had felt a little bad for her, because this bouncy bubbly, young woman would become but a shell of her former self within a year of teaching these high school brats. He always felt sorry for new teachers. Until they started irritating him beyond what he thought was possible. Thankfully, Ms. Dwyer had not yet reached that stage.

The vice principal walked towards the library and pulled open the door to find the scene more or less how he pictured it –the brats were quiet and keeping towards themselves. But he knew the moment he turned his back they would start talking again –plotting their revenge against the whole institution, perhaps. GH folded his arms and glared at the students, who looked at him.

"I heard talking," he said. "Violation of the rule will result in another detention. Walker, you're already signed up for next week, so if anyone wants to join him, they can raise their hand now." He gazed at the black-haired boy in the back with his feet up on the desk. Such blatant disrespect for authority. "No? Good. One more peep from this room and it's detention for everyone. I'm going to leave the door open as a precaution." He opened the door stop and left the library door open. "Any more questions?"

"I've got a question," the cheerleader said, raising her hand. "Is there any chance we could all be put in separate rooms? For our health."

Gunther-Hagen smiled. "Of course… not. You are here for your punishment, and if you're bothered by that, then don't come here next time!"

"Why d'you show up, then, if you hate kids so much?" Walker piped up from the back corner.

"One more word from you, and it's detention for another Saturday." the vice principal growled.

There was a pause, in which GH thought he had won. He turned for the door but then Walker opened his mouth.

"Balls."

Gunther-Hagen scowled. "You want to test me? One more detention."

"Big balls."

"Another one. Another Saturday, right here in this room. I'll even throw in a straightjacket."

"I think that's illegal," Walker said casually. "You can put me in detention all you want, but I'll put you in the slammer for child abuse, Hans."

"That's one more."

"Hans… what kind of name is that? Your parents were poor immigrants from Estonia, or something?"

"One more."

Walker mimed crying. "Oh, officer, please help! This big, balding, fat man is trying to hurt me! Oh, oh _oh_!" He reverted back to his normal voice. "Do I look like I give a fuck?"

"That's it, Walker. You've got another detention. Keep this up, and you'll have detention until the day you graduate, and then some. When you get held back because you've failed all your classes, you just remember that you have detention to look forward to! Now are we done here?"

"I don't think so." Walker said easily. "You see, I've got loads more to say, and I'm thinking that writing it in an _essay_ won't be enough."

The vice principal inhaled. "Another detention. How many's that?"

"Six, plus the one you gave him when he said you looked like Sting after he was indisposed," Jason piped up from the corner. GH stared at the boy and then turned around and stalked out of the library, leaving the door wide open behind him.

...

**_MONIQUE_**

Okay, this just started to get interesting. Way more interesting than my Twitter feed. It's drama on a _Keeping up with the Kardashians_ level. And... it's a weird analogy, but Nick is definitely Kris Jenner.

I mean, he's crazy. He's absolutely insane. There's no other explanation for it.

"Are you crazy?" I whispered at Nick. "You're trying to get detention! You won't be able to graduate or anything!"

He smirked. "I don't care what he thinks. He's always hated me. Anyways, there's a more pressing matter at hand. We've got to close that door." He pointed at the open library door, which swayed slightly. "If Hans comes back in here we won't be able to have any fun."

"Fun? You think arguing with the vice principal of the entire _school_ is fun?" Jason piped up from the corner. He looked surprised at his own daring.

"Well, we all know your idea of fun –chess marathons while pretending to get high off of Kool-Aid –is really diverting, but I don't feel like spending the next seven hours writing an essay, right? So, yeah. Fucking with the big guy is entertaining. And I've got a genius plan to do it. Who's in?"


	6. Chapter 6

**_NICK_**

"First things first," I said, standing up. "We're closing that door."

The others looked at me dumbly. "Um… but it's s'posed to stay open," Jason said. I rolled my eyes at him.

"So?"

"So there are five other people in this room that don't want to put up with your shit!" James said suddenly, looking daggers at me. I feigned surprise.

"Woah, you can count! Dag nab, I'm impressed!" I exclaimed. "But I think you count as two people –one for you and one for your _enormous_ ego."

Monique turned around. "Speaking of egos, you can't judge anyone. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Why, I'm Prince Aladdin," I said sarcastically. "Get out of my way."

"You think you're such a big boy, such a cool kid, rebelling against the institution, aren't you?" James said, crossing his arms. "You don't even count at this school. If you disappeared, no one would even care. In fact, some people might even be a little happier for it. It wouldn't make a difference if you didn't exist at Newton."

There was a pause in which Max gave a low whistle, looking between James and me. I paused for a moment, not sure what to say.

"Well, maybe I'll just run out, buy me some Hollister clothes, and join the league of Rich Bitches." I say clearly. "And maybe I'll buy myself a nice Mercedes convertible too, and some stilettos. See how you live your sorry, pathetic lives. Join the student council and the wrestling team. Run for class president… I'm sorry, I mean class _clown_."

"You wouldn't last a day." Monique said contemptuously.

"I'm so _hurt_."

Celeste turned around and added her two cents. "You're all being stupid. Guys like _you_" –she gestured to me –"only knock everything because they're too afraid of being vulnerable!"

I clapped my hands. "You're right! I'm cured! Now I can run around and join everything!"

"I think you're just a big coward." Celeste said.

"I think _you're_ afraid to admit you're secretly in love with me." I told her sweetly. She glared at me.

"Um… I'm in Robotics Club…" Jason said, to no one in particular.

"You're afraid that no one'll accept you, so you crap over other peoples' excitement just to feel better about yourself." Celeste said, looking at me.

"That's 'cause everyone doing these… _activities_ are complete assholes, innit?" I demanded.

"You don't even know us!" Monique said, looking hurt.

"I've known you for about an hour. That's more than enough. And I don't know any rapists, but that doesn't mean I'm going to join a fucking rapist club to _learn more _about them."

"Watch your mouth when you're talking to her!" James yelled once again.

"I'm in Mathletes too." Jason said, looking around at us.

"Okay, hang on a sec," I walked over to Jason's table and sat down next to him, looking at him intently. "What the hell are you going on about?"

Jason turned pale. "I… I said I was… in the Robotics club, Mathletes, and… Spanish –Spanish club."

"Good for you, man," I said, nodding. I turned to Celeste. "Hey, cheerleader girl, are you in any of these clubs?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Those are academic clubs."

"There's no difference."

"Academic clubs aren't the same kinds of clubs as other clubs…" she began.

"No, it's not like _cheerleading_, where you get picked up and thrown into the air multiple times. How is doing a bunch of cartwheels and jumping up and down any better than solving math problems for fun?" I asked.

"People watch cheerleading. They like it." Celeste said defensively. "It's a social club, not an academic club."

"Yeah, but to geeks like him" –I pointed to Jason, who silently protested – "those kind of clubs are his life. What do you even do in Robotics?"

"We –we talk about robots, we draw robots, we build robots."

"Wow. I wouldn't have guessed that. You said you talk about robots?"

Jason fidgeted slightly. "Yeah."

"So that's kind of a social club, right? Queer, depressing, manic… but in a sense, it's social." I said.

"I guess. I mean, there are like, ten other guys in the club. And… and there's a girl. One girl. And we talk and stuff, and we get together at the end of each year to go to competition… and if we win, we win a trip to Disneyland –"

"So you get baked, you party…"

"Well, no, we go to the Robotics Expo, so we have to dress up, so, like, no… we don't… we can't… we don't do… get high." Jason finished feebly.

"Only burnouts like you get high," Celeste said.

"If you guys don't shut up, Gunther-Hagen's going to burst in here at any second, and I've got plans this Saturday and I'm not missing them because of you geniuses." James snapped.

"That's a tragedy… Missing golfing with your best pals! I'm sure they'll still like you, once you kiss their asses for about two years…"

"You wouldn't know anything about it, deadbeat! You don't even have _friends_!"

"Oh, I know, and it feels like a part of me is missing because of it…" I turned to Jason and mock-pleaded with him. "Will you be my friend?"

"Don't answer him, Jason." Celeste snapped. "He's not worth it."

"Shut up!" yelled Max, who had been exceptionally quiet this whole time. "Gunther-Hagen's coming!" She looked straight at me.

I quickly dove into the seat between Celeste and Jason and crossed my legs, looking as prim and proper as possible. Sure enough, GH walked past the open door a second later, going towards his office. After he was a safe distance away, I grinned and leaped over the desk towards the door.

"No monkey business." Jason said.

I turned around. "Exactly, young man. Have you finished your paper yet? Get to work or it's another detention!"

I tried to fiddle with the screw keeping the door open, but it was jammed in there tight. Couldn't get it out without a pair of pliers and a screw driver.

"What are you doing?" I heard Monique say.

"Getting himself arrested so we don't have to see his face anymore, I hope." James said. "That's where he's headed, anyway."

* * *

**I know Max isn't really a major player in this so far but she'll come up, promise! And I know the chapters are really short but I'm ending the chapters based on the best place to end them, not based on word count. So they won't all be the same length, but they won't all be this short, either. **

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far! **


	7. Chapter 7

**_MAXINE_**

I watched interestedly as Nick fiddled with the door some more. Nick was a really interesting character… and I was really interested to learn more about him. Now, I had only been at Newton High for a week, but it wasn't hard to see the clear divide between the different cliques. It was probably part of the reason why Nick's 'fuck it' attitude was even more interesting. Monique, Celeste, and James were clearly, unspokenly, on the same team. That left the brain who seemed to be too afraid to open his mouth, the temperamental, rebellious guy who seemed to have no success with the door so far, and… me.

Coach, can I get drafted to the other team?

I smiled at my own joke. At my old school, in California, I was a soccer whiz. I was the star goalie of the team, and a varsity player as a freshman. But a stupid ankle injury ensured that I'd never be able to play soccer every again. So I turned to kickboxing –an unorthodox sport for someone like me, sure –but I was able to, you know, kick things. I was so immersed in it that I became a black belt in two and a half years. I also turned to music –cliché, but true –and by the time my mother said we had to move to Arizona, to Newton, I was a completely different person than I had been. I was on the outside looking in.

And I kind of liked it there. Less drama –_no_ drama, in fact.

The room had been silent until now, but Jason finally spoke up. I guess he couldn't hold whatever he had to say in any longer. "Nick… that's school property… you can't, like… tamper with it."

Nick looked up. "Don't call me Nick. You don't have that right." He fiddled with the door for a second longer, and the door finally slammed shut. He dove into the seat right next to mine.

"That's hilarious, Walker. Fix it before we all get in trouble!" James said from the front.

"Yeah… you should open the door again." Jason ventured timidly. "Fire hazard."

Nick leaned back in his chair. "Do I look like a genius? It only goes one way."

"Fix the damn door, Walker!" James yelled.

"Keep your panties on, Juliet!" Nick grumbled. He looked at me and I could finally see a close-up of his face. It was all I could do not to let my jaw drop. He'd taken off the hat and shades, _finally_, revealing… a pretty damn gorgeous face. Chiseled features, bright, dark gray eyes, and his black hair fell perfectly into his eyes. I almost didn't catch what he said to me. "You want me to open the door?"

I shrugged. "It's not like we can leave anyways." I willed myself not to turn red. Even my old boyfriend Dylan wasn't that hot. But that was before… never mind.

Nick smiled. "Then case closed. Shut up, the door stays closed."

"Asshole." James muttered.

Suddenly, we heard footsteps right outside the door. Nick fell silent and sat up straight as we heard the unmistakable voice of Dr. Gunther-Hagen shout, "God dammit!" He burst open a second later into the library, pushing open the closed door, glaring at all of us. "Who closed that door?"

I looked over at James, expecting him to rat out Nick, but he stayed silent and stared at his hands.

"Who closed that door?" GH repeated.

"How should we know? We're not _allowed_ to move." Nick said. "Must be an apparition of some sort, if you ask me. I _knew_ this school was haunted…"

GH ignored him and turned to Monique. "Who?"

Monique, to her credit, didn't crack. "We were just sitting here, writing our essays like we were supposed to. I… didn't even notice the door." She swallowed.

GH looked at Walker. "Who. Closed. That. Door?"

"I think a screw fell out of it." Celeste piped up.

"It just closed! We weren't even looking at it." James added. I looked at them in confusion. Huh? A second ago, they were all up in Nick's grill, and now they were defending him?

Arizonians were weird.

GH _still_ wasn't convinced, though. He turned to Walker. "You took the screw out, didn't you?"

Nick remained impassive. "I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"I _know_ you have it, Walker. You've been messing with me since the day you stepped foot into this damned school. Now, you want me to pull you out of that seat and shake the damn screw out of you?"

"I honestly have no idea what you're going on about, Doctor. Screws fall out all the time –probably the person who built that door was high or something, it happens a lot –"

"Give it to me, Walker!"

"Excuse me, Doc –erm, sir –why would anyone want to steal a screw? It's not even worth that much." Monique piped in.

GH turned to her. "You watch it, young lady."

He walked towards the door and tried to jam an encyclopedia in the crack between the door and wall, but the door was way too heavy. It slammed shut anyway, and the others all laughed. GH straightened his suit and glared at us.

"James Griffiths, get up here."

James got up and walked over to Gunther-Hagen.

"You know, doctor, James is breaking the rules! If James gets up, we'll all get up! It'll be anarchy!"

"If this isn't anarchy, I don't know what is." I muttered to myself. I muttered a bit too loudly. Nick smirked and GH glared at me.

"You –what's your name?"

"Max." I said simply.

"Max, Max, there are a hundred Maxes in this school!"

"Maxine Ride, then." I shuddered at my real name.

GH turned his nose up at me. "You new?"

I nodded. "Fresh off the boat –I've been here a week."

GH snorted. "And you've already landed yourself in detention. What a bright career path you've chosen to take. You keep going like this, Maxine Ride, you'll end up just like Walker over there." He pointed to Nick, who waved at me sardonically.

"That wouldn't be such a bad thing." I blurted. Gunther-Hagen was scowling and Nick was suddenly looking at me with a renowned interest. _Why_ did I have to say that out loud?

"Anyways. James. Front and center. We're going to move this magazine rack, see if we can block the door from being closed. Don't want any funny business going on in here." GH turned away from me to face James, who was looking curiously from me to Nick.

I mentally groaned.

* * *

**Little inklings of Fax to keep the Fax lovers at bay... not sure if I want to take that further just yet, though. I still have to explore Celeste's mysterious past, Jason's family, James's authoritative dad (if any of y'alls can remember from the first chapter). And oh yeah, Monique's life isn't as perfect as you might think, either. And don't even get me ****_started_**** on Nick... ****_So _****much stuff to do, so many chapters to write, so excited for this! **

**By the way, congrats to Australia for winning the Cricket World Cup for the fifth time. They're pretty good, I have to admit, even though my heart belongs to India... It's annoying living in a place where no one watches cricket, but you have to take what you can get, I guess. Football's the biggest thing here, and while I am sort of a fan of the Seahawks, I just don't care about it that much... **

**Anyways, next chapter should be up soon! **


	8. Chapter 8

**_JAMES_**

I was a good student, inclined to do what people told me, even if GH smelled like old socks and rotten Chinese takeout from this close proximity. We picked up the magazine rack and heaved it in front of the door, but the damn thing was so heavy.

"Don't drop any of the magazines!" GH barked. I rolled my eyes and heaved the rack even higher so he would stagger and almost fall.

"Anarchy." Nick said again, but no one was listening to him.

We hoisted the rack in front of the heavy door, and waited for a second, panting, to see if it would take. It did. The door remained open, but there was a huge-ass magazine rack holding it open, ensuring that no one would be able to get in or out without difficulty.

Nick seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "That's a very clever idea, sir. Way to improvise. It's just… what if there's a fire? Blocking the only escape isn't safety-conscious, _sir_. I shudder to think what it would mean for you to endanger the 'lives of six children."

GH purpled. He turned to me and said, "What kind of stupid idea was that? Pick the thing up and put it back exactly where it was!"

"And don't drop any of the magazines," Nick added helpfully. I flipped him off and nearly dropped the rack on my foot. Shit.

**_JASON_**

As GH and James disappeared into the side closet to drop off the magazine rack, I said, "There are actually two fire exits –one at either side of the library. You know that, right? They wouldn't build a school that was a death trap, right?" Unless we were going to school in the Death Star or something, but if that was the case, we'd have much bigger problems.

Just then, GH and James reappeared, GH looking particularly red-faced. Kind of like my dad when he goes for a particularly hard session of racquetball. "Get back in your seat!" he yelled at James, who, rolling his eyes, fell casually back into his seat. "I expected more from a varsity soccer player!"

Nick snorted, and the vice principal glared at him. "So, a screw fell out, eh? The next screw that falls out is going to be from your head, mark my words!"

He left, slamming the door shut behind him.

The six of us waited with bated breath for a few moments, not daring to move or even look at each other. Then, finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I snorted, and then suddenly I burst into laughter. I couldn't help it, it just kept pouring out. I actually fell out of my chair and rolled around on the ground, in peals of laughter.

The others stared. "I think IQ Boy's finally lost it," Nick remarked.

"Did you see the look on Gunther-Hagen's face, though?" Celeste asked, giggling. "I wish I could've taken a video of it." She started laughing, and the others joined in.

"_I expected more from a varsity soccer player!"_ James wheezed in between laughs.

"The next screw that falls out is going to be from your head!" Nick choked out.

For those few moments, when all of us were laughing together, I actually felt like we might be… friends.

But it ended too soon.

After the laughter died down I stared at the clock. It wasn't even ten yet. I let out a soft groan and ran my fingers through my hair, making it stand on end.

Nick had pulled out a cigarette lighter and was lighting his shoe on fire.

James was pulling the strings out of his sweatshirt.

Monique was picking off bits of pink nail polish off of her nails.

Max was shooting rubber bands at paper targets at her table.

Celeste huffed and twirled her blonde hair around her fingers, still sitting up perfectly straight.

I couldn't help but close my eyes. I was kind of tired… as there had been plenty of action. And I still had like seven hours to write my essay. A little nap couldn't hurt…

…

"Wake up!"

I jolted out of my seat to see Gunther-Hagen standing above me, glaring daggers at me. Looking around the room, I could see that the others had also dozed off and were facing the repercussions of being woken up so abruptly. Max stifled a yawn behind her hand and I rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the blurriness. "What t-t-time is it?" I asked, unable to stop my yawn.

Gunther-Hagen smiled unpleasantly. "Almost eleven. Who has to use the lavatory?"

Six hands went up in the air at the same time. GH scowled.

…

It was quiet in the bathroom. Well, duh. It's the unspoken dude rule that you don't really talk to each other while doing your business. But it was so nice having a change of scenery, even if it was for only five minutes. Even if the change happened to be in a boys' bathroom that the janitor had clearly given up on. If you wanted an example, there were drawings of dicks all over the walls, a couple of the urinals were disgustingly dirty, and the whole place smelled like shit.

I finished my business and went to wash my hands. Nick was there, washing his hands, the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled up. He splashed some water on his face, which looked so refreshing I decided to do the same thing.

While Nick was reaching for a paper towel, the sleeve of his jacket fell down and I saw a huge, circular-shaped burn on his arm. Like, a _perfect_ circle. It could have been used to teach eighth graders geometry, that's how perfectly it was shaped. But it looked too perfect to be made by accident.

I opened my mouth to ask him… I dunno. Maybe just to ask him if he was okay. But Nick noticed me looking, and he scowled. To say that he was glaring at me would be bit of an understatement. He yanked the sleeve of his jacket down forcefully and stared at me like _I_ was the one that had given him that burn. If lasers could actually shoot out of peoples' eyes like Starfire in the Teen Titans, I would've been obliterated. I found my voice and asked, "You okay?"

Nick turned to face the wall across from me. He spoke in a stilted voice. "I'm fine."

Somehow this didn't add up. "You sure?"

Before I could even react, he jumped me. He grabbed my arm and twisted it painfully behind my back, pushing me up against the wall. I tried to push him off, but Super Mario Bros only takes you so far. He was too strong. Nick glared at me, his face inches from mine. "You didn't see _anything_. You hear? Nothing!"

I paled. "I j-just wanted to see if –"

Nick scowled and twisted my arm further. I swallowed my squawk of pain. "You little _shit_. You have no right –no right to interfere with my personal life! You have no right to ask me if I'm _okay_!"

Just then, James stepped out of the stall and his eyes widened. "Walker! Get offa him!"

Nick just pressed me against the wall harder. "Fuck off!"

James didn't fuck off. "Get the fuck off of him, you fucking twat!" He grabbed Nick's arm and attempted to pull him off of me. The combined efforts of James and me –okay, mostly James –was enough to send Nick flying into the opposite wall. He stood up shakily, and the three of us glared at each other, panting hard.

James pushed his red hair back with his hands. "What the hell was that?" He looked at me, as if for an answer.

I shrugged. "We were just… playing." My arm hurt terribly, and so did my neck. I didn't dare look at Nick.

"What kind of fucking street game was that?" James muttered, pushing past us and out of the restroom.

…

**_CELESTE_**

I examined my reflection carefully in the mirror. _Not a single strand out of place_. I redid my hair so that it was in a perfect high ponytail above my head. I only wish I had thought to bring my lip gloss –my lips were starting to look chapped.

Beside me, Monique had somehow managed to smuggle the entire store of Sephora into the bathroom. Lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner pencils littered the counter around the sink as she expertly applied mascara to her already long lashes. In fact, now that I noticed, her lashes were so long they couldn't possibly be real.

"Are those fake?" I blurted.

She looked at me contemptuously. "What?"

"Your eyelashes."

Monique capped the mascara and gave me a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You jealous?"

Everything about her read fake. That fake bronzed skin, that fake bouncy hair, those fake nails, and now, her eyelashes. "No." I said honestly.

She resumed applying her foundation. "It takes you the same amount of time to get ready in the morning, so don't judge me, bitch."

My mouth fell open. "Excuse me? _I_ don't have a fake tan, or fake eyelashes, or a fake… face!"

Monique snorted. "Yeah, but have you looked in the mirror recently? There's one right in front of you. I suggest you take a look. Fixing your ponytail ten times so it looks absolutely perfect, ironing your cheerleading outfit so that it doesn't have a single crease, filing your nails to perfection… You're a basic bitch."

"At least I'm not a hot mess." I snapped.

Monique smiled as she put on her lip gloss. "But at the end of the day, I'm actually happy with myself… _and_ I look hotter." She smacked her lips and smiled serenely into the mirror.

On my other side, Max was tying her hair up in a messy bun. The kind that made my eyes hurt. She noticed me looking. "You have a problem?"

"No."

"Good." Max resumed tying her hair up. Monique snorted.

I composed myself. Walk, don't run. I pulled open the door and walked stiffly back to detention, where I at least didn't have to talk to any of them.

* * *

**So I lied -here's the full Chapter 8. I just couldn't bear to post such a short chapter so I included some of Chapter 9 in here. I made Monique a bitch on purpose and hopefully the reason'll be revealed in a later chapter.**

**By the way, this scene wasn't in the movie. I made it up because it added some depth that the movie didn't include...That's because in the movie, there were only five students. In this story, there's six. The movie's just there as a guideline, but I'll be mostly working my own elements into this. Except Nick should remind you of Bender -that was on purpose. Reason being that I LOVE Fang (erm, Nick) and I LOVE Bender :) To see them together is my ultimate character.**


	9. Chapter 9

**_CELESTE_**

To say that this detention was a waste of my precious time was an understatement.

My essay, so far, read,

_Who I Am, by Celeste Wilkins_

_Who am I, you ask me. I am a junior at Newton High School. I'm on the honor roll. I'm co-captain of the cheerleading team. I'm treasurer for the debate club. I'm so busy on school days, I don't even have time to eat breakfast sometimes. And now the public school system has managed to not only take away my weekdays, but my weekends as well with this stupid, useless detention. _

I looked up, in defeat. Nick had taken hold of a dusty-looking volume and, even as I watched, ripped out a few pages with a loud tearing sound.

"Who's going to pay for that?" James asked, watching idly.

"Oh, I thought maybe some of your daddy's tax money," Nick answered.

"You're so intelligent," James spat.

Nick shrugged. "You're right. It's _wrong_ to destroy literature." He tossed the book aside. "And Shakespeare really _turns me on_…"

I stood up and picked up the book Nick threw. _A Midsummer's Night Dream_. Hard to believe it, but I sort of agreed with him. I hated this book, when I had to read it sophomore year.

"I like him," Jason ventured.

"What did we talk about keeping your mouth shut?" Nick asked him casually.

"Why should he?" I asked, still holding the book, still standing up for some reason. "You're allowed to have your own opinion."

Nick groaned. "Listen, angel,… stay out of this."

"Don't call me 'angel'," I said angrily. "You know, if you learned how to read and picked up a damn book once in your life, maybe you wouldn't piss on everyone else's joy so much."

"Right. We're locked in a library, and I'm supposed to _read_? What has this world come to? There's nothing else to do when you're locked in a penitentiary, anyway."

I was surprised that he even knew the word. "Speak for yourself." I muttered.

"I couldn't speak for you even if I wanted. I don't know your language," Nick said out loud, picking up another book from the stack near him. "What the hell is _Animal Farm_?"

**_MONIQUE_**

"Hey, are you free tonight?" James asked me. I looked at him warily.

"I dunno. My mom said I was grounded but my uncle said to blow her off… but then again, I don't know." I said.

"Well, there's a big party at Sam's. His parents are in Cabo celebrating their anniversary."

"The house with the huge balconies?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Can you go?"

"I don't think so," I muttered.

"Why not?"

I shrugged. "Well, because if I don't listen to my mom, that's okay because my uncle said it's okay, but if I don't listen to my uncle, it's because my mom said it's okay. And the stupid thing is, they never agree on anything. By that logic, I could do whatever I wanted and only get into trouble with one person… it sounds awesome but it's really a pain. It's like any minute, I'll drive them apart with my antics."

I didn't know Nick was listening, so I jumped when he said, "Who do you like better?"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Your mom or your dad?"

"Uncle."

"Same difference…"

"No, it really isn't." I didn't want to go into the business of my dad.

"But if you had to choose between them."

"I'd sooner run away."

Nick grinned. "You serious?"

I sighed. "Neither one of them gives a fuck about me, I know that much. My mom only uses me to get discounts on haircuts, you know, when it's like mother-daughter day at the salon, and my uncle only uses me as a cover-up to go gambling, so –"

"Exactly!" Max yelled suddenly. I turned around, surprised, to see her looking straight in my eyes. She colored slightly at her outburst, but said, "That's… exactly right."

There was a small pause, and then James said, "So, do you guys feel sorry for yourselves?"

"If I don't, who will?" Max demanded. "I just moved from California a _week_ ago. Okay? I have absolutely no friends here. I have no one but my mother, and my dad that we moved to basically avoid."

"Friends back home?" Nick asked her.

She winced, as if those were memories she'd like to avoid. "Not anymore."

Nick clutched his chest. "You're breaking my heart." He turned to James. "Hey, funny guy."

"Don't call me that."

"You think your parents are the shit?"

"What do you want me to say?" James asked, more himself than anyone else, it seemed.

"The truth, probably."

"Yeah… here's the problem. It's a vicious cycle. If I say no, I'm an idiot. If I say yes, I'm still an idiot…"

"And a liar." Nick added. He looked at the group at large. "Who here can honestly say they love their parents and get along perfectly well?"

No one raised their hand, but James said, "You know, if we weren't at school right now, I'd pound you into the asphalt so hard, kids'd be playing basketball on top of your ass for a week."

Nick raised his ring finger. "Oops, wrong one." He flipped James the bird.

Jason said, "You guys, come on," He walked over to James and Nick, who were glaring at each other, and sat down, assuming the role of pacifist. "I mean, no one _likes_ their parents… I don't like my parents… I think their way of parental… protection is just crazy. Insane."

Nick smirked down at Jason. "IQ Boy."

"What?" Jason asked.

"Don't start. You are literally a dad's daydream, okay? The second-greatest one he has, right after the one with the three naked ladies that dance all over him wearing nothing but three Miller's Lite bottlecaps. And don't feel bad that you came in second. The first one can never be satisfied, anyway."

"That's my… that's my problem, though!" Jason said.

"Listen… I can understand why you'd hate them for making you wear your grandpa's clothes. But your aura reads _Dweeb_. What would you be doing right now, if you weren't in detention by a mere fluke of the universe? Cleaning your room? Picking up trash off the highway with your Boy Scout troop?"

"Why d'you have to insult everyone, Walker?" Celeste asked angrily.

"I'm telling it like it is! I wouldn't expect you to know the difference!" Nick yelled back.

"He has a name, you know." Celeste snapped. "Like I already told you."

"I _know _Justin's name –"

"Jason." Jason said.

"That's what I said." Nick finished. "And my condolences to you, Jeremy. What's your name anyway, Cheerleader?"

"Celeste." Celeste said, squaring her shoulders.

"Celeste."

"You got a problem with that?"

"That's a fat girl's name."

Celeste paled. "No, it's not!"

"You're welcome."

"I'm not fat."

"Not yet…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Celeste spat.

Nick smirked. "Well, you're gonna grow up to be a successful office mom. You're going to marry a dweeb –possibly that one there" –he pointed to Jason –"and you'll be cranking out approximately 2.3 children before you hit the big 3-0. And at first, you'll get away with saying it's just leftover baby weight. But eventually, you won't be able to hide it anymore. The _cravings,_ for chocolate, or cake, _just another piece_…"

Celeste flinched. "You're a fucking moron."

"Oh, obscene language from such an angel!"

"I'm not an angel. None of us are, or we wouldn't be in here, would we?" Celeste asked forcefully. "We all have baggage, and we all have our secrets. You can't go around judging people."

"Are you a virgin?" Nick asked.

"What kind of a question is that?" I entered my own two cents. "What's your business what she does or doesn't do?"

Nick smirked. "Well, there's a reason I'm not asking you, sweetheart. I know _you've_ opened your legs to more boys than the number of rings Tom Brady has on his fingers. Citing Daddy issues."

I turned a deep shade of puce. He had just crossed the line. "Listen, you fucktard," I said furiously. "The world would be a so much better place if you'd just rip your vocal cords out. There's a reason I live with my uncle instead of my dad. It's because _I don't have a fucking dad_."

**_MAX_**

I did _not _see that one coming.


	10. Chapter 10

**_MAX_**

The tension in the room was so palpable that I could probably cut it with a sick karate chop.

I wasn't going to, obviously. Just saying that I _could_…

Anyways. This chick. Monique. I didn't know anything about her, and until thirty seconds ago I thought she was just another prep bitch. She reminded me strongly of this girl named Lissa from my old school… Aw, forget it.

But now that we all learned that her father died, I couldn't help but feel bad for her. I knew what it was like to have a dad that wasn't there, but in my case, it was because he happened to be living in New York.

But this wasn't my moment. This was Monique's.

Nick was looking flabbergasted, as though for the first time in his life, he didn't have a snarky comeback. Which was good. I mean, if he somehow managed a comeback to this, he'd be an even bigger asshole. Not saying anything could be the best thing…

Nick finally found his voice. "Wow. I'm… sorry." His voice came out thick and he cleared his throat. "Can I ask how?"

Monique looked at the ground, blinking hard. I recognized that technique. I had utilized it a lot back in California. Blink hard to look like you're concentrating, but really you're just holding back tears to seem stronger than you are inside. To hide the fact that you're breaking.

Monique and I were more alike that I would have ever thought.

Still her moment. Sorry.

She cleared her throat slightly. "Car crash."

She didn't need to say more. We all understood. Celeste covered her mouth with one hand, Jason looked at the ground, James nodded sadly, and Nick actually kept his mouth shut for once.

"You okay?" James asked her quietly.

She nodded. "I've had time to come to terms with it. I just… don't like being called a diva-bitch. That's not _all_ I am."

"Why?" Nick asked. I groaned. Here comes the tornado…

"Be quiet, can't you see she's sad?" I asked him angrily. Why were _all_ the attractive boys assholes?

Nick ignored me. "But why did you stick with the popular kids after… the incident? You coulda carved out a whole new life, a whole new personality... I mean, life could've been so much easier…"

"I like being liked." Monique said, wiping her eyes. Her voice came out quite steady, however. "And it was all I had."

"Listen man, you really need to learn when to fuck off." James hissed.

"You gonna make me?" Nick asked. "I always wondered why they called you the class clown. You're not funny. You're just a buzzkill."

James started to roll his sleeves up. "Why can't you just leave people alone?"

"You gonna make me?"

"Yeah, I will."

Nick stood up at the same time James did, and they squared each other off. James was just a couple inches taller than Nick, and you could feel the hatred radiating off of them.

Or maybe I was just sweating. Did I forget deodorant?

"You and how many of your weak-ass friends?" Nick asked.

"Two of my friends. Fist and _Pow_." James said, balling his fists up and bringing them dangerously close to Nick's face.

"That's funny, because I've got two friends, too." Nick said, smiling. "_Bring_ –_it_."

I watched interestedly as Nick lunged towards James, who ducked the punch and tackled Nick at the waist, bringing him down hard. Nick shoved James off of him and stood up, panting, spitting hair out of his mouth.

"Had enough?" James spat.

"I don't wanna do this to you, man." Nick muttered.

"Do what? You didn't do jack shit!"

Nick shrugged. "Because I don't wanna kill you… yet. If I kill you, your fucking do-gooder parents would sue me and I'd go to jail before I even had a chance to become America's Next Top Model."

"You're a fucking coward." James said. He turned away but Nick suddenly pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed it into the table, inches away from James's fingers.

Monique screamed.

"All right. Let's end this now. You don't talk to her. You don't look at her. You don't even think about her without getting your face pounded into the dirt outside the trailer park." James growled.

"I'm just trying to help –"

"You do any of that, I'll kill you personally. And I won't have to bother about going to no jail, because your ass isn't even worth another _detention_." James finished.

That was harsh.

Nick opened his mouth to retaliate but closed it, flipped James the double bird, and sat down near me. James stood up for a few more moments, unsure of what to do, and sat down next to Monique again.

All was quiet for a while. Monique and James were having some sort of unspoken conversation. I was willing to bet all my teeth that they were exes. Or maybe they were dating, but secretly. There was something going on there. Celeste was examining books, and Jason was nowhere to be found.

"For what it's worth, I'm on your side," I muttered to Nick.

He looked at me, surprised, but then gave me a crooked smile. "Got the hots for the bad boy, huh?"

"You're an ass," I said, grinning.

"And you're… pretty hot. Great body," Before I had time to blush or sputter or even react, he continued. "What were you in your other dimension, a cheerleader, gymnast, what?"

"Well, asshole, I was a kickboxer. And I'm from California."

I grinned at his stunned reaction. To his credit, Nick shook it off pretty quickly. "Well, I guess no one's what they seem, huh? Next you'll be telling me Obama's a white man."

"You didn't know that?" I asked, feigning surprise. "Reverse Michael Jackson. It was all hushed up in the media, though…"

Nick chuckled. "You. I like you."

"I like me, too." I said before I could stop myself.

Nick smiled and leaned in real close to me. My breath quickened –was he going to kiss me or something?

His lips almost brushed my ear, leaving a tingly feeling. "You, me, GH's office in ten. Bring ibuprofen, it's going to be like nothing you've ever experienced before."

"Are you inviting me to have sex?" I whispered back.

Nick snorted. "Oh, when we're done, you'll be hungry for more than just regular sex."

"I'm flattered. Really, I am. I bet you're a _pro _and everything," I said, smiling. "But can't you think of a better way to rebel against the dragon of the establishment than stripping down and going at it over old term papers?"

Nick leaned back in his seat, a faraway look in his eyes. "No, I can't think of anything better. I'd do it myself, but…" He winked. "You need two people for this plan."

"Why don't you ask Jason?" I asked, grinning. "Or James?"

"Do I look gay to you?" he asked me quietly. Without warning, Nick pulled up his shirt. My breathing quickened slightly when I saw his rock-hard abs. Damn, where'd he get those? "Does _this_ look gay to you?" He grinned at my expression. "I like mustard on my sausage, not more sausage."

I laughed out loud at the ridiculous euphemism. "Yeah. Okay."

"What's the matter? You've never done it? Pretty girl like you, must have been scooped up back in California."

"No, I beat up every guy that tried to hit it." I joked.

"Right. The kickboxer thing," Nick muttered.

It felt good, joking about Cali. Because the only other option I had when it came to that was to cry. And I wasn't really the weepy type.

"I'm going now, baby," Nick whispered, running a hand along my arm. I felt the goosebumps rise, but I shook the feeling off.

"I'll be waiting for you… _lover_." I whispered, giggling. The whole thing was just so ridiculous. These were _my_ moments, of course...

The six of us settled back into our whole if-it's-quiet-there's-no-bullshit routine. I decided to listen to music because something about Nick just made me want to fuck the rules. I put my headphones in my ears and quietly nodded to the beat.

**_NICK_**

The only fun part of this detention so far –besides pissing everyone off –was the conversation I just had with Max.

* * *

**Hope you liked the FAX! **

**This is going to be the last chapter I'll be able to post for a while. I've just gotten really busy, because the springtime is Armageddon for a junior in high school taking all IB classes. So I can't make any promises with updates. I ****_have_**** written the next three chapters out, because when I first started posting this story I had written the first eight chapters. I haven't had time to write too much so my buffer's slowly been running out. But I want more of a buffer so I'll only be updating my finished chapters maybe once a week to give myself time to write more. After that... Let's hope I find time to write before that.**

**That being said, I really enjoy writing, I really do, and I want to thank everyone who's been reviewing. You guys make me love writing even more. I'd update even if there were no reviews, but you all are amazing. **

**That's it for now... Until next time, keep reading, and stay out of detention :)**

**\- ZipUnZipIt**


	11. Chapter 11

**WARNING: This chapter contains more swearing than usual ones, and a lot of talking about sex. Not quite M-rated, but still worth a warning at the beginning. Read at your own risk :)**

* * *

**_NICK_**

Just as I was starting to get majorly bored, the door to the library opened again and this time stepped in… who else, but the mother of all fuckers, the man whose made it his life goal to make my life miserable, the one and only, the incomparable, the world's worse educational professional!

Steve Carell!

Just kidding. Gunther-Hagen. I wanted to slit my throat. What could he want this time?

He cleared his throat and everyone looked up from their various states of lethargy. "That's half an hour for lunch," he barked.

I looked at the clock to find that it was twelve. Only six more hours left. I'd be counting the seconds.

"Do we have to eat _here_?" James asked him.

"Here." GH affirmed.

"But I think we'd be more suited to eating in the cafeteria." James persisted. "Besides, we're not even allowed to eat in here! It's the library!"

"I don't care what you think. I don't care what you want. You're in detention, and you're not in charge." GH said, ignoring James's deep scowl.

"Are we at least gonna get milk?" I demanded. "It's school district policy that all students must be required to have at least one source of calcium. Section Twelve, Article 29, bullet point 4."

That was complete bullshit, but I bet my left hand that GH never cracked open the book of School District Policy. Hell, he probably didn't even know one existed, seeing as he didn't question me and I just made it up.

"We're extremely thirsty," Celeste added.

"I have a low tolerance for dehydration," Max quipped.

"I've seen her when she's thirsty, sir," I interjected. "It's not pretty. She turns into an animal, biting, kicking, screaming –_ow_." I muttered, massaging my leg where Max had jabbed a shank into it. That girl kicked _hard. _I stood up to avoid more physical pain. "Don't worry sweetie, I'll get it," I said, eyes watering.

"Hold it for a second, Jekyll!" GH interrupted. "Listen, you think I was born in a bin? You think I'm going to let you roam freely around these halls? You can sit down and tell your girlfriend there'll be no field trips today."

I sat down. "There'll be no field trips today, honey." I said.

"I'm so depressed," was her snarky reply.

GH pointed at Monique. "You," He pointed at Jason. "And you. Sit up, kid, this isn't Laser Tag."

Jason, who had sunk so low in his seat only his crimson forehead could be seen, sat up so hard he appeared to crick his neck. Poor kid.

"There's a water vending machine eon the third floor. Up and at 'em."

…

**_JASON_**

We were walking down the hall silently, not looking in each others' directions. Of course we weren't. Monique was the beauty queen, the diva of the school, and I was the poor schmuck who had been petitioning for a Dungeons and Dragons club. I had tried creating a Gobstones club back in freshman year, but let's face it, no one wants to join a club a freshman started. Especially not a freshman at the bottom of the social food chain.

So that's why I was so surprised when she talked to me. Like, actually said words in my direction. And I couldn't even pretend that those words were for other people, because there was no one else around.

"What're you in for?" she said.

I didn't answer. I was still taken aback that she was voluntarily talking to me. "Why –why are you here?" I stammered back.

Monique fell silent, and we walked up the stairs to the third floor in silence. It wasn't until we reached the machine when she spoke again.

"It was… it was really stupid," She looked at her reflection in the glass of the vending machine. "I was pressured into it, it's not like I'd voluntarily do something like that. But I mean, those guys are my friends. Well, I thought they were. Now… I'm not sure. I mean, they totally hung me out to dry."

I waited for her to elaborate. She took a deep breath and continued.

"After school, after ASB, we all went to the bleachers next to the football field and we… did pot. We smoked pot out of a bong. It was my first and only time, but it was enough. We got caught. And the others scarpered off, leaving just me. I felt pressured to put all of the blame on myself, because I knew that they'd hate me if I told on them, too. So that's why I'm here," Monique finished, not looking me in the eye.

"That's nice," I said after a pause. I plowed on recklessly. "Why are you really here?"

Monique shoved past me, back to the library. "Forget it, nerd."

…

**_JAMES_**

"You know what I want to be doing, right now?" Celeste asked, looking up at the ceiling. I tried looking up there as well, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was so entertaining about that ceiling.

"What?" I asked.

"You mean _who_?" Nick interjected.

"Watch it," I said.

"No, really. Have you guys ever played Kill, Fuck, Impregnate?"

Celeste winced. "You know, it's actually called Kiss, Kill, Marry…"

"Who the fuck wants to marry at this age? And since when has anyone been okay with just kissing? I'm not playing the stupid middle-school version. We're playing Kill, Fuck, -"

"Girls can't impregnate anyone." Max pointed out.

Nick scratched his chin. "Good point. All right, for girls, it's Kill Fuck, and who do you want to impregnate you."

"That's disgusting." Celeste said.

"That's the game. You wanna play or not?"

"I'll play," Max said.

Nick grinned. "Okay. How about… Bill Clinton, Ebenezer Scrooge, and Kermit the Frog?"

"That's absolutely disgusting. Can I kill all of them? No? All right…" Max thought for a while. "Okay. I'll kill Kermit, 'cause I'm not sure how we'd even go about having sex –he's a puppet. But I don't want to fuck either of the other two. This is too hard."

"I'd do Scrooge. Because if I had to pick _someone_ to father my child, why not a former President of the U.S.?" Celeste interjected.

"Hillary'd kill you, though," I said. "She's not kidding around."

"I can handle myself," Celeste answered coolly.

"Your turn," Max told me. "Dora the Explorer, Mother Teresa, and Miley Cyrus."

I squinted. "Wasn't Mother Teresa that extremely pure, celibacy-advocating, completely religious nun?"

"You'd be inserting your cross into her soul, if you know what I mean," Nick sniggered.

"I'd kill Dora, hands-down." I said. "Can't stand her fucking irritating singing and shit. I'd fuck Billy Ray's kid, because she's probably good in bed, and I'd give Mother Teresa a mini-James. He can do some good in the world."

"That's what I'd do." Nick said. "Exactly."

Nick and I high-fived while Celeste and Max grinned. It was hard to believe that a stupid sex game could bring us closer together, but it did.

"But seriously, guys," Celeste said. "You know what I'd rather be doing right now? I wish I was on a plane, or a train, headed straight for Mexico. I don't want that plane to ever stop. I want it to keep going and take me far away from here."

"Aww, the angel gets one detention and suddenly her life's ruined." Nick said sadly. He sounded genuinely sad to hear that. "It's normal, you know, for some of us to be here."

"Oh yeah?" Celeste asked. "What do you do, then, that lands you in detention so often?"

"Smokes weed, I expect." I said.

"You're so funny," Nick spat. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe I don't want to be here? That I don't enjoy this, however much I mouth off about it? That I have dreams, and aspirations, and feelings, and that I want to grow up and become something of myself as well?"

There was a shocked pause, and then Max, Celeste, and I all burst into laughter.

"I'd believe that," I said, "if I didn't see the pack of cigarettes sticking out of your pocket. You want to make something of yourself, then act like it. Stop smoking."

"I don't smoke," Nick said. He wasn't laughing.

Max snorted. "What –are those metaphorical cigarettes or something?"

I blinked. "What?"

Celeste nodded eagerly. "Yeah, like, you put them in between your teeth and it's supposed to symbolize something that _could _kill you, but you're choosing not to let it."

The two girls shared a look of understanding while Nick and I stared at them, confused.

"You guys are high." Nick declared. "On some shit."

"It's from the Fault in Our Stars!" Max exclaimed. "Not that I'd expect you to watch it. But seriously. If you don't smoke, why d'you have those?"

Nick stared at his hands. "I can't tell you."

"It's because he _does _smoke," I said, "and he's planning to have a little drag just as soon as this whole ordeal is over with –"

"I DON'T smoke!" Nick said. He had turned very white.

We all waited for him to continue.

"I… it's my dad. He's crazy. He's a crazy son-of-a-bitch and I wish he'd die. I know that's a terrible thing to wish on your dad but trust me, you'd wish the same thing if you were related to him." Nick pulled out the box of cigarettes and tossed it on the table. His hands shook slightly. "He… _wants_ me to smoke. He _wants _me to end up like him, a… drunk, pathetic, violent waste of humanity. He… forces me to smoke, sometimes. I had my first cigarette when I was ten. I choked on it, but he made me eat it. _Eat_ it." He exhaled and continued. "I don't want to smoke. But I still have to carry these around as a reminder of where I come from and what's expected of me."

I felt pained to hear that. What could I say to him? _I'm sorry_? Stupid unsentimental shit. I wished I was a Hallmark Card.

"You okay?" Max asked him quietly. Nick nodded.

"I don't like talking 'bout it." he mumbled. It occurred to me that that was the most Nick Walker had ever spilled in his life about himself in one go.

I was the class clown, not the psychologist. To lighten the mood, I said, "So, Nick. Madonna, Cher, Celine Dion. All over sixty, but all still lookin' good. Kill, Fuck, Impregnate. Go."


	12. Chapter 12

**_CELESTE_**

Nothing like a Dr. Oz pour-your-heart-out session to make you hungry as balls.

Wow, I was talking like Nick now. I hoped I didn't pick up any of his other mannerisms.

"Someone toss me a Coke?" I said across the room to no one in particular.

"Diet or regular?" Jason asked me.

My lips moved to form the word _diet_, but then I realized that Nick was looking straight at me and I cut myself off. "Regular. Don't you know the kind of shit they put in diet?" I asked Jason.

"Uh, s-sure. Aspertame, sucralose…"

"I didn't ask for a chemistry lesson." I snapped, taking the regular Coke from him. I stared at the can – 150 calories of sugary fat. My mom was going to kill me. I'd probably have to work out for three hours if she caught wind of this.

But screw her, I was already in detention, and this was as rebellious as I was going to get. I popped open the can and took a giant sip. Next to me, Jason was pulling out his lunch. I looked at the little sandwich tin he pulled out, complete with flowers hand-painted on the side. He also pulled out a Treetop juice box and a Ziploc bag of Goldfish.

I watched as he pulled out his sandwich –with the crusts cut off, of course. He probably expected me to laugh at him but all I felt was resentment that my mother didn't do that for me. Because she was too _busy_.

I pulled out my own lunch –a salad, thrown hastily together from the salad bar at Applebee's. And the piece-de-resistance? A fortune cookie. I was living the life.

I wanted to wallow in self-pity, but instead I looked around at the others. James had stolen what seemed to be the entire store of Safeway and was pulling out a huge bag of chips, three sandwiches, a box of cookies, and an apple.

To my surprise, Max was going in the same direction. I guess the girl had a high metabolism, which was just one more thing to be jealous about.

"Why're you eating leaves for lunch?" Jason asked me, his mouth full. I groaned.

"I have a _really_ low metabolism," I said, not technically lying. "And… uh… I had a big breakfast, so I have to cut down on the carbs… you know?"

He looked at me like, _you're totally anorexic_. I wasn't. I wasn't anorexic… I just couldn't eat ten sandwiches and still be rail-thin like some people.

"You okay?" Jason asked me. I winced.

"Yeah."

And without further ado, I began eating my leaves.

And Jason began slurping his juice.

…

**_MAX_**

I noticed Nick hadn't gotten anything out for lunch –what was he doing, even? After his sudden outburst of emotion, James had attempted to bring the conversation back to a sane place, and Nick had just… quieted out. I wanted to help him, but how did you help someone who didn't want to admit he needed help?

"Where's your lunch?" I asked him quietly.

His old smirk came back. "Depends. What're you wearing underneath that sweatshirt? Because I'm gonna bite it off like it's a –"

"You're disgusting," I said, pulling out olives from my sandwich.

"You don't like olives?" Nick asked pointing to my small pile on the desk.

"Hate 'em," I said, pulling out another one. "But apparently, I wasn't clear enough at Subway when I said _no olives_. I think she took it to mean, _please, build me a sandwich using _only _olives_!

To prove my point, I dumped the contents of my sandwich upside down and, like, thirty five olives fell out. Nick grinned. "You know who hates olives more than you?"

"Misha Collins?"

He smirked. "Yeah. Him, and me."

"So, I guess the Olive Theory doesn't work with us, then." I said.

"What's the Olive Theory?"

What the hell? "Do you not watch TV?" I demanded. "How can you not know the Olive Theory? It's a fundamental concept of life!"

Nick snorted. "If you think that's going to make me curious…"

"Okay –here's the thing," I said, scooting closer to Nick so he could hear me better. "For a couple to work, there has to be balance. If both people like olives, then there'll just be fighting over olives. If neither people like olives, then all the olives that come into contact with that couple will just go to waste. But if one person likes olives and the other doesn't… then both are happy. It's a perfect balance. But you don't like olives, so we can never be together." I finished.

Nick smirked. "So, because I don't like olives, you will never go out with me."

I snorted. "As if you'd ever ask me out in the first place."

"But you didn't answer the question. If I liked olives, and if I were to ask you out, would you say yes?"

I thought about that. "If you liked olives. And if we weren't in detention, and we actually met in a nice place, like Starbucks, or the paintball arena… and if I _was _looking for a relationship, and if I thought we actually stood a chance, then maybe I'd say yes."

Nick's lips twitched into a smile –a real one. "You'd say yes? If all the above happened?"

"You don't like olives." I pointed out.

He shook his head. "Hand me those olives. I'm going to love olives so much, I'll probably ask _them_ out instead of you."

…

**_MONIQUE_**

"You know, I don't think I'll go to Sam's party, either," James told me in between bites of his third sandwich.

"Why not?" I asked him, surprised.

He shrugged. "I'm just not feeling it. This detention really took the life out of me."

I grinned. "I know. You've gone almost –" I checked the clock –"four hours without cracking a single stupid joke. Where _is_ the James Griffiths I fell in love with?"

He looked at me, stricken, and it was a few more seconds before I actually realized what I said. "Um –"

"I'm sorry," I said hastily, bending over my Chinese food. "I didn't mean to bring that up."

"It's fine, I just… was thrown off guard," James muttered.

And he kept eating, while I continued to wonder why I had to open my big mouth and say words in the first place. True, we had dated for almost a year, but that was two years ago. Ancient history. And we only ended it because we had been drifting apart… but we were freshmen, what did we know?

Since then, I had barely talked to James. If he was in the same class as me, we talked to our own friends. Never would I imagine that we'd both get detention and end up sitting right next to each other. And yet, he had been nothing but nice to me today.

"James," I said, unsure of where I was going with this.

"Yeah."

"If… if you're not going to the party tonight… d'you wanna hang out?"

He looked to be in deep thought. "Hmm."

"I mean, as friends," I clarified. "Obviously."

"You sure? This won't be weird, or anything?"

"No, I don't think so Will Ella be okay with it?"

James snorted. "Ella? Who cares what Ella thinks? I _know_ she's cheating on me with Sam. I know that much."

I paused, stunned. "Really? _Ella_? But she's so sweet!"

"To you, maybe. To everyone else? She's a first-class hoe."

I winced. "Aw, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Our relationship was going to the rocks anyway. And yeah, I can hang out tonight."

"Okay, great!" I said, grinning.

As I leaned back in my seat, I felt my heart flutter ever so slightly.

I ignored it, of course.

* * *

**I'm sorry if this chapter seems kind of half-hearted... I've been working on other stories and 'real life', as I like to call it, has been a real drag. And by drag, I mean I feel like life has chosen to ****_drag_**** me across a really busy intersection on the busiest working day of the year where there's thousands of cars going past every minute and everyone's hyped up on caffeine for their brains and aspirin for their headaches. **

**So it's hard for me to sympathize with the kids in detention. But hey, I wrote this story. Maybe Nick will love olives. Maybe Monique and James will fall back in love. Maybe Celeste will reveal the REAL reason why she's eating salad. Maybe I'll find time to sleep for more than four hours. **

**You just never know. **

**Just kidding. I know. **

**(INSERT EVIL LAUGH)**

**Thanks for reading, and stay out of detention (although if you ever do get put into THIS particular scenario, then you'll know exactly what to do when someone says they hate olives)!**

**-ZipUnZipIt**


	13. Chapter 13

**Minor references to abuse/molestation ahead. You can skip it if you want -it's in Max's POV. **

* * *

**_NICK_**

I put the first olive in my mouth and nearly gagged. No… olives were disgusting. They tasted exactly like my dad's feet smelled after he took his cracked leather shoes off after a long day at the A&amp;P.

That was a fucking joke. My dad didn't work for shit, and he smelled worse than these olives.

I caught Max smirking at me and I painfully swallowed. If this was what it took…

Although, I wasn't completely sure what I was accomplishing by torturing myself. Was I really going to ask her out?

Let's think about this for a moment, Nick. She's from a well-bred, high-class family, from the looks of it. You're from the _bad_ neighborhood, the Compton of Arizona. She's probably used to dating rich-assed white boys who wore polo shirts and played golf in their free time. You're half Latino and you'd never be caught playing golf in your life. She probably has high aspirations, for college and beyond, and what do you have? A responsibility –no, a _burden_ to finish high school and get a half-assed job with barely enough income to provide for your dysfunctional family.

She's also beautiful. But you're fucking hot, so no problem there…

"You don't have to poison yourself," Max said, grinning. "We both hate olives. So what?"

"It's not _poison_," I shuddered. "It's worse. It's like rat tonic mixed with three-month-old lasagna. It's complete and utter crap. I wouldn't eat olives if they were the last thing left on Earth and I was starving to death."

Max looked amused. "So much for loving olives. I guess I win this round, huh?"

Oh… hell no. "Bitch, I will eat the fuck out of these olives."

"Be my guest… and have fun, eating that rat tonic mixed with three-month-old lasagna," Max said, smiling demurely at me before flouncing off to throw her garbage away.

Okay, she didn't _flounce_. Girls that flounce aren't attractive to me –in fact, I'd sooner be running in the opposite direction from girls that _flounce_. But you get the point. I would do anything to avoid getting one-upped.

I looked over at Jason, whose lunch looked like he had stolen it from an elementary schooler.

Just my joke. In reality, he was probably lucky there were none of those burly fifty-graders around, so no one could bully him and steal his lunch. That kid had a sandwich tin… complete with flowers, hand-painted on the sides.

I mean, he wasn't even _trying_ to be cool. It was sad.

"Jason," I said loudly, so he'd turn around. "What you got for lunch?"

He looked startled, but answered quickly. "Uh… a pastrami sandwich on rye, apple juice, carrot sticks… and Goldfish crackers."

I grinned. "Seems mighty nutritious."

"I… guess."

"You gonna grow up to be big and strong?"

He looked at me, clearly wondering where I was going with this. "I… guess," he said again. "I mean, my mom packs my lunch, and I eat it. I dunno what she wants from me…"

"Oh, you don't, do you?"

"No. Who does? Who knows what their parents want from them?" Jason asked, and the others grinned.

"Oh, the uszhe, you know, get straight A's, get into Harvard, earn squillions of dollars, become a famous doctor or a scientist or a lawyer, crank out approximately 2.3 adorable grandkids _before_ the age of 30, and don't talk back to them at all," Celeste finished.

"You seem to have your life figured out." Max said.

Celeste snorted. "As _if_. As _if_ I could do any of that. It's kind of sad, knowing that I will never be able to fully impress my mother."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I mean… I'm the co-captain of the cheer team. It's an incredible honor for a junior, but it wasn't enough for my mom. She was actually _mad_ that I had to share my position with someone else. She wanted there to be only one captain… me. And she was super mad when I broke up with Ari –the school quarterback. She didn't _care_ when I said he was cheating on me. She said if I wasn't popular, I was nothing. And she gets _so_ angry when I get an A- on anything, even if I tried my hardest. It's complete hell living with her."

"What about your dad?" James asked.

"He's scared of her," Celeste said, grinning ruefully. "_Just _because she was cheer captain and dated the football captain and was Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen… she thinks I should be all that too."

"So… to recap, Monique's mom and uncle don't care about her. _My _dad is a fucking burnout and can't be counted on to do anything except abuse my mom. And _your _mom seems to be the worst so far –a freaking matron."

Celeste grinned. "That's about it."

"I didn't know this turned into a therapy session." Monique said. "We came here to serve detention… and we ended up spilling on our families."

"Not all of us," I said. I turned to Jason. "Is life really that perfect in your home?"

"Well, I-"

"Okay, guys. Solely based on Jason's lunch, this is my interpretation on life at the Crane household." I stood up and pulled my low-slung jeans up until they were sitting above my abs and hanging above my ankles. Assuming a deep voice, I said, "Hello, son!"

Then a higher voice, slightly higher than my own. "Hey, dad!"

"Is school swell?"

"Oh, sure, Dad! You know, me and my Robotics team are on track to invent the cure for cancer!"

"That's great, son! And how's your 10.0 GPA?"

"Why, it actually went up to 11.0, Dad! I got a twelve-hundred percent on my exams!"

"That's swell! Isn't life swell?"

"It sure is, Dad!"

"Yay!"

"Yay!"

I sat back down, pulling my jeans back down to where they usually sat.

Jason looked like he half-wanted to laugh and half-wanted to cry. "That… that's not completely right."

"No? Should I have pulled my pants up higher?"

"It's not that funny anymore, Walker." James said. "I mean, what about _your_ family?"

"My family? You want to talk about _my _family? Can I just say, my family is so dysfunctional it's a miracle I've learned how to talk, walk, and read? It's a miracle I'm even standing here today. If you want to talk about my family… well, you're out of luck." I said.

"I guess we're all kinds of messed up." Max said.

"You? What's so messed up about _you_? You're the new girl with a fresh start. You can be anything you want here. Whatever's messed up about you… you could leave that in California." I said.

"Yeah, well, I didn't. I brought it here with me."

"What's so messed up about you, then?" I asked her.

**_MAX_**

I couldn't tell them.

No. Of course I couldn't tell them. Nick was right. I had the opportunity to have a fresh start here at Newton. As far as the others were concerned, I had a clean slate. They didn't know anything about me or my twisted life. They didn't know about the… incident or Dylan or kickboxing or anything else.

But he was also wrong. Whatever happened in California… I couldn't leave it there. I couldn't leave it there because it was something that would never leave me, no matter what I did from here on out. It was something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

You see… at my old school in California, I had a special someone. His name was Dylan. And for the first two months of our relationship, he was a complete angel –he was there for me when I needed him, he knew when to give me space, and he was a really good person to joke around with. But then came the summer between freshman and sophomore year.

The summer when he… changed.

I wasn't aware of it at first. I wasn't aware that the whole time we were dating, he was thirsting for something more. He was thirsting for all of me.

Of course I didn't give it to him. I was a fifteen-year-old, and I wasn't even sure about the whole sex before marriage thing. I hadn't even given any thought to it, to be honest. But then he got angry. He got angry beyond the scope of a normal person. He must have had some form of chemical imbalance in his brain because he didn't just get angry at me. He got _violent_.

I had to quit soccer not because of a soccer-related injury –Dylan was the one who had broken my leg. I took up kickboxing just so I could try to fight him. I pretended nothing was wrong. But inside, I was panicking. There was no way out. Dylan was _everywhere_. For the next two years.

And then, he reached his peak. One day, I let my guard down… and he seized his chance.

The night he broke me was the night everything else shattered.

So that was the real reason I had to get out of California.

But I couldn't tell that to anyone. Even my own _mother_ didn't know… she thought I wanted to come to Arizona to go to University of Arizona. I played along with it, and kept the tough façade I had built up put.

To be honest, however, Dylan would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

So, yeah.

We were all kinds of messed up. Me possibly more than anyone.

Nick was still looking at me intently. I had to make up something. "Um… my dog died just before I moved," I said lamely.

"Was it… an old dog?" James asked, raising his eyebrows sarcastically.

"I had her for almost five years!" I said defiantly. How dare they think that my made-up dog's made-up death wasn't worthy enough to be fake-sad over?

"You'll get through it, sweetheart," Nick said airily. "After all, there are plenty of other dogs out there."

I didn't think so. Everyone only got one dog in their life, and they were supposed to be able to save it and use it whenever they wanted. But not me. That chance was ripped away from me the night Dylan took my dog and killed it painfully while I couldn't do anything.

And by dogs… you know what I mean.

* * *

**Unlucky chapter 13... **

**Poor Max. And poor Celeste with the psycho-mom. And as time goes on, you'll find that the others are also all kinds of messed up. **

**So... between school, tennis, and my extra-curriculars, I haven't had time to write at ALL. This is the last pre-written chapter I have for you guys. I would have held on to it, but I feel bad leaving you guys to wait for more than a week for a single chapter... so sorry. **

**I do have the LAST couple of chapters written out, but this story's not near the finish line yet. They've only started to get comfortable with each other, a little bit of flirting and teasing's been going on... but they haven't connected on a deeper level yet. I know (on a basic level) what I want to do with these characters and how each of them will change by the end of the story, but I would like your input on this. **

**Is there a particular scene from The Breakfast Club that you want to see here? Or is there just anything else you'd think would be funny, or sexy, or like a plot twist? As time goes on, I'm finding that the great thing about this story is that it's just so flexible. So I'm reaching out to you all for ideas on what could happen... on how I can make this like the exaggerated, sadistic, sarcastic critique on high school and home life that it was meant to be. **

**So, review or PM to me any suggestions you might have! Thanks to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, following, or favoriting this story. You guys have put this story over 6,000 views! It means a lot to me that people out there like this, and it ups the pressure on me to continue! **

**Stay out of detention, you troublemakers :) I'm looking at you and you know who you are...**


	14. Chapter 14

**I'm posting this and I have exactly 6,666 views... Should I knock on wood or something? **

* * *

"We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it  
Always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it  
On and on and on we are calling out and out again  
Never looking down, I'm just in awe of what's in front of me"

-From _The Thrill_ by Wiz Khalifa

* * *

Gunther-Hagen paced the length of his office angrily. Actually, it wasn't even big enough to be considered an office. More like a renovated _broom closet_. And to prove his point, his hip hit the side of his desk painfully and he employed some of his choicest swear words. Damn the school district! With their emphasis on nurturing the _children_, the little brats who thought they ruled the world… there was almost no money left in the budget for the important things, like larger offices for teachers. And what about him? He was the vice principal, for God's sake!

He was going to make a note of this at the next staff meeting –that was for sure. Maybe he'd threaten to resign. But he knew that wasn't going to happen. He might loathe his job, and everyone he came into contact with… but he loved having authority and he wasn't going to give that up, not for all the broom closets in the world.

He reached for a pad of paper and a pencil, and instead knocked over his cup of coffee. Hot, black liquid spilled all over his suit and he swore even louder, loud enough that the dratted kids down the hallway might be able to hear him if they'd just follow the damn rules and shut their damn mouths and behaved, unlike the little assholes they were turning out to be –

"Mr. Gunther-Hagen?"

Gunther-Hagen looked up, eyes watering slightly from the pain of the heat, and straightened slightly. It was Jeb Batchelder, the lowly custodian. GH didn't trust the man, with his seedy frame and his dark hair and his beady eyes that seemed to be everywhere at exactly the wrong time. "What do you want?" he barked.

Batchelder leaned on his broom. "It seems to me that _you're _the one who wants something… how 'bout a napkin to get the stain off your jacket?"

"I have work to do. I'll get this dry-cleaned later." Gunther-Hagen waved the janitor away, but the man stayed put right where he was, in the doorway.

"Some work, trying to ruin kids' lives."

GH could throttle the man. He really could. "I'm not trying to ruin anyone's life. If they want to ruin their own lives, then that's completely up to them."

Jeb shoved the hand not holding the broom into a pocket of his blue custodial jumpsuit. "Seems to me that _their _punishment is more like _your _punishment."

GH scoffed. "Go mop up the gym floor. There's _still_ sweat on it from yesterday's varsity basketball game."

"Come off it, Hans. Everyone knows you hate it here."

Gunther-Hagen slammed his now-empty coffee mug back onto his desk and glared at the janitor. "Don't _you_?"

"Don't I what?" Jeb asked.

"Don't you hate it here?"

Jeb pushed his dark hair out of his eyes with one hand and grinned. Actually, it was more like a leer, and GH found himself wishing there was room to take a step backward. He wasn't intimidated by men –usually, he was the one intimidating others –but there was something about the school's mysterious custodian that gave him the chills. "I walk around for my job, as I'm sure you must know. And I _see_ things. I _hear_ things. You think you have the power to ruin these kids' lives? I know _exactly_ what they do, where they do it, when they do it. I'm like a secret spy. I have the power to completely _destroy_ them."

GH found himself wishing he had a lock on his door, something he had refused at the beginning of the year because he hated the idea of being locked in a broom closet. He found himself wishing he could lock Batchelder out. He sat down on top of the desk. "How do you mean?"

Jeb crossed his arms. "Last week, I was emptying out your trashcan when I found a few empty condom wrappers. Strawberry flavored ones. Let's just say I know _exactly _who's been having sex on your desk in between classes."

Gunther-Hagen immediately leapt from the desk. "What?! You didn't tell me this before!" He looked the table disgustedly, as if the students were still there.

Jeb beamed his evil grin again. "Hans, I can be a valuable ally."

GH was still breathing hard, trying to make sense of all this. Now he wished 110 percent that he had sucked it up and demanded a lock. "Fine. Fine. What else do you know?"

…

**_NICK_**

"D'you ever think the system's against us?" I asked out loud.

"How do you mean?" Celeste said, after a moment's pause.

"You know how teachers always tell you when you walk into class. Oh, we're here for you, come and ask questions any time, we want you to pass, we want you to succeed. All that bullshit."

"What makes you so sure it's bullshit?" Jason asked, and he looked genuinely confused. Poor kid.

"I'm just saying, if that was really true, then high school dropouts and drug abusers and all those other things that people always talk about wouldn't be such big problems. If the people who ran the system really cared, there wouldn't be any of that shit because they wouldn't _let _there be any of that shit."

"That's not true," Monique said. "You can succeed if you want to. You can't expect teachers to spend their time babying you around. You have to take initiative and have the drive to succeed."

"That doesn't explain why I walk in on a couple going at it furiously almost every time I go to take a piss. Come to think of it, I've seen _you_ a couple of times." I snapped. "I think they're _trying _to destroy our lives. And this isn't something that's only true for me. Everyone. Even the brain over here. Jason. Do you really think your teachers care if you succeed?"

He pushed his blond hair away from his face. "Uh… I don't know the right answer."

"Come on, brain, you don't have to have the right answer 100% of the time! I'm asking you what you _think_, not what's right."

"Uh… uh… I don't know."

"He can't answer that." Max entered.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because –and this is nothing against you, Jason –because he was brought up that way. He was brought up in a kind, loving family, and he thinks that adults, by definition, are supposed to like you and care for you and care about your wellbeing."

I scratched my chin. "Huh. Interesting."

"If I could interject," Jason began, "I do think that teachers care about us, yeah –"

"Because you've been brainwashed!" I said hotly.

"Because it's their job!" Jason shot right back at me. "Why become a teacher if you don't like kids? Why would you waste your life, huh?"

"Good question, Jase," I said sarcastically. "Maybe you should give your good friend Gunther-Hagen a call. There's a guy that loathes kids. Do you think he hates himself? Actually, he probably should, given that he looks like a bloated jellyfish with acne –"

"But Jason has a point!" Celeste said all of a sudden. "It's not just teachers, it's coaches, too! James, remember how Coach Sampson stayed back after school to help you perfect your sideline kick?"

He looked surprised. "How'd you know that?"

"I had cheer practice that whole week. I saw Sampson helping you thoroughly, on your stance and everything. You think he'd do that if he didn't care about you?" Celeste shot.

"Please," I said dismissively. "He's only coaching Tall, Tan, and Athletic over there so it looks good on his resume. You're a high school coach, all you want is to get your kids to nationals so you can put it on your resume and get a better job somewhere else, right?"

"Who said anything about tall, tan, and athletic –"

"It's true," Max said. "My soccer coach back in California only cared about the number of trophies and medals we earned her. It was so intense, and she drove us insane, so I quit because of her."

"You play soccer?" James asked her interestedly.

"I used to."

"Varsity, or JV?"

Max tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Varsity, but –"

"As a freshman?" He gave a low whistle. "That's pretty impressive. I'm sorry you had to quit."

Excuse me; _I _was flirting with her first. "Yeah, yeah, it's really tragic and everything, but thanks for proving my point, Max."

She gave me a half-irritated, half smile. "You're welcome… Nick."

"Why don't you try out for soccer here?" James asked. "I mean, according to Walker the coach is selfish and doesn't care about the players, but she can't be as bad as whoever you had in Cali. We could really use you –ahem, the _girls'_ team could use you."

Max shook her head. "I kickbox now."

Everyone's eyes widened. "Uh… out of all the remaining sports… you pick _kickboxing_." Celeste said. "Kickboxing."

"It's a sport." Max said.

"It's a type of street fighting." Celeste countered.

Max turned slightly red. "So I kickbox. So what? I'm sure everyone else has weirder things to say. I'm Max, and while I look like I should be a cheerleader –"

"Or a gymnast." I interjected.

Her mouth twitched. "While I look like I should be a cheerleader _or _a gymnast, I do kickboxing."

"That's wonderful." I said. "Defy the stereotypes."

"If you're not careful, I'll box you into your very own grave." Max said, smiling tightly.

"You know, that's just hot to me." I said, grinning.

* * *

**Lots to say! **

***Yeah, Jeb's in this now. I'm not big on OCs so he's the janitor. Serves him right. **

***So I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here, because I usually go on these long rants about how Dylan is so misunderstood in canon and he's actually a good person and I like a bit of Mylan now and then… but I made him the biggest asshole in the universe anyway. Reason is, I don't really like OCs that much (forgive me for that) and Dylan's name was the first one I thought of to put for Max's tormentor (there aren't that many boys in the books, anyway). So I apologize for that, but know that that's not really how I feel about Dylan, even though he's going to seem like even more of an asshole in the next few chapters.**

***And on another note, I'm going to do some self-advertising here. I am in no way finished (we're about halfway through), nor am I giving up on this story, but I've posted a new MR one called _Blindsight_ that you guys should check out! I know this story is kind of a high school drama, and if you guys want a change of pace to something deeper and way more complex, you should check out _Blindsight_. I've been working on that one for a REALLY long time so I hope it's good!**

**And this is the final note –my exams are over (for now), which means I'll have more time to write, which hopefully means more frequent updates! I love this story, but I'd also love to see it end, because this story is the first one I'll actually have completed in my life… so I'm really excited for that. And to put that little sign that says _Complete_ at the end of the story… That's the dream.**

**And for the first time ever, I have a Question of the Chapter.**

_**What's your favorite color to wear? **_

**I STILL don't have a dress for prom and I'm slightly dying here, so that's the reason for my weirdish question…**

**Until next time, then!**


	15. Chapter 15

"Got to get this ruddy stain off… got to get it dry cleaned…"

GH paused outside the library and leaned against the door, pressing his ear to it. The kids seemed to be silent. They wouldn't give a crap if he went off to the dry cleaners, right? They'd be relieved, probably, that the dragon of the school disappeared.

He quite liked that picture, actually. Dragons were powerful. Dragons could reduce anyone who annoyed them to ashes with their molten breath. Dragons didn't have to put up with the shit of thousands of teenagers five days a week.

…

"How d'you know he left?" Monique asked Nick worriedly, as he peered out of the library door. "He might be hiding or something, trying to catch us out."

"I wouldn't put it past him," Nick agreed, turning around to face the rest of the group. "But he's the only one that drives such an ugly-assed gray Buick, and it drove away just now. Heard the engine stutter and everything."

"Poor man," Celeste said quietly. "He doesn't make any money, and he doesn't like his job…"

"And kids, here is the most important life lesson you will ever learn –don't end up like that guy," Nick remarked. He looked at the others. Jason and Celeste were right next to each other, followed by Jason, and Max at the very back. Monique was standing right next to him, and her mouth opened to ask another question.

"So how do you know when he'll come back?"

"I don't." Nick said simply.

"But –"

"You're being _bad_, breaking the rules. It should feel good. Better than any high you can get."

"I'll feel good if we don't get caught." Monique grumbled, crossing her arms.

…

"Why are we even going to Nick's locker?" Jason asked James quietly.

"Dunno. Shut up." was his contrite reply.

"But what's the _point_? I mean, we could get caught and have detention again, and then I'd miss the Robotic finals –"

"Shut up."

"But where are we_ going_?"

"If you open your mouth again, _you're_ going to the emergency room!" James snarled. He started speeding up so as to not end up next to Jason again.

"Well, _someone_'s PMSing." Jason muttered.

…

"So, what's your genius plan to fuck with the big guy, as you so cleverly put it?" Max asked Nick quietly.

Nick grinned. "Oh, just a little bit of mayhem every now and then didn't hurt anyone."

"You better have thought this through."

"Don't get your panties in a twist, sweetheart." Nick said, winking. "I believe _I'm_ the master at causing trouble and not getting caught."

"If you were actually good at not getting caught, you wouldn't be in detention in the first place." Max muttered.

…

"Why are we here?" Celeste snapped, crossing her arms as Nick opened his junk yard of a locker.

"Did you shove the entirety of the school's trash in here?" James demanded, as Nick began rifling through the mess. "How d'you even find anything for your classes?"

Nick smirked. "Sorry –my live in maid was screwing my butler so I fired both of them. And to answer your question, Funny Boy, I don't. Have you ever seen me carrying a stupid _binder_ or _notebooks _to class?" He continued rifling until he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "_That's_ the ticket."

"No way. We came all the way here to get your cigarettes?" Monique said incredulously. "Smoke a pack on your own time!"

"What a waste of an excursion…" James snapped. "I could've been drawing dicks on the whiteboards of empty classrooms." He glanced at everyone, who was staring at him. "What? I'm the class clown –I'm sure everyone's expecting me to do it."

"Walker, you did _not _bring us here just so you could smoke."

"You're right. I brought you here so _you_ could smoke… a _joint_." Nick said. And he pulled out a packet wrapped in newspaper that smelled god-awful.

"Weed?" Max asked, an incredulous expression on her face. Nick shrugged.

"_Drugs_?" Jason asked, looking excited and fearful.

"Walker!" James hissed, looking around as if he expected a bunch of angry teachers to pop out of the walls and send them to juvie. "Put that thing back where it came from before we all get expelled!"

"_You _can't get expelled. You're on the varsity soccer team. That's like having tenure." Max snapped.

"I thought you were supposed to be funny –why're you being such a downer today?" Nick quipped lightly, closing his locker.

James turned as red as his hair. "I _am_ funny. But this isn't."

Nick walked off, leaving the others still clustered around his locker.

Surprisingly, Celeste walked after him.

"That was _weed_. That's _marijuana_." Jason said, his eyes still bugging out of his head.

"Once again –do you _want_ to end up in urgent care? Do you want to get expelled? Shut the hell up!" James barked.

He stalked off after Celeste and Nick, and Monique shrugged at Max and Jason and followed.

Jason looked over at Max. "Do you even care that your boyfriend's a weed dealer?"

Max smirked. "_My_ boyfriend's not just a weed dealer. He's so much more. He does me proud."

…

GH grumbled half-hearted profanity as the traffic signal turned red, forcing him to come to a screeching stop and earning a condescending glance from the snickering kids in the next lane. He looked over and gave the kids an irritated glance. It was a blond-haired boy in a red convertible with his arm slung casually around the passenger seat, where the teenage-equivalent of Heidi Klum sat sunning herself. GH scowled. Here was one of the foremost reasons why he hated kids. They thought they were all the shit. Wait until they were fifty and balding and unable to get a good job with enough income to even buy a pack of chips from the nearest 7/11.

Then he'd show them.

"Catch you on the flip side, old man!" the boy yelled as the light turned green, speeding off with an impressive engine roar.

She's only fucking you because of your money, GH wanted to say, as he floored the accelerator and the old Buick sputtered into acceleration.

He pulled up into the school parking lot, still fuming, and parked diagonally across three spaces, past caring. He climbed up the stairs to the school, still grumbling, and opened the door to find the library door open.

He walked to the library as fast as he could and furiously threw the door wide open. Those damn kids! They were nowhere to be seen. They hadn't left, because their cars were still in the parking lot. So that meant they were somewhere in the school. No doubt this was all plotting of that major pain in GH's ass –that insufferable Nicholas Walker. Well. They were somewhere in this school, and he'd find them.

And when he did… well, there'd be hell to pay, wouldn't there?

…

Nick's locker was in a corner of the third floor of the school. The library was on the first floor, right in front of the main entrance. Nick paused, looking outside the window. "Uh oh. GH's car is back. He's here.

"And he's probably looking for us," Monique added. Nick frowned at her.

"That's probably true, but you don't have to be so cynical about it," he said. "Think of this as an adventure. We'll have to split up, though… How about me and Max, and the rest of you can divide up however the hell you want."

Max smirked. "Who died and made you captain of the misfits?"

"Well, since we're the misfits, I appointed myself." Nick commented.

"Get a room," James muttered.

"Huh," Nick said, grinning. "Maybe you _are_ funny sometimes. Okay, so James and Monique, and Celeste and Jason. Fine by me. And remember –the goal is _not_ to get caught. If one of the teams gets caught, we will _not _rat out the others. Instead, we will take the fall and give the others enough time to get to the library, no matter how much the weasel tries to torture us. Agreed?"

He was met with awkward silences and broken eye contact as people stared at their shoes. Nick cleared his throat. "I know you guys aren't the best of friends, but we all have one thing in common. We're all in detention, which means we've all made mistakes. And that in itself is a great thing to share, if you don't mind me saying. Now, who the fuck is with me?"

"Fine," Celeste said grudgingly. "Jason and I won't take you all down when we get caught."

"When –?!" Jason started to protest.

"Honey, you're so new to breaking the rules it's not even funny. We'll be the first ones to get caught, trust me." Celeste said. "Now follow me. I've got a plan."

The two of them doubled back through the hallway the others had just walked through. Nick looked at Monique and James, the detention group's power couple. "You in?"

"It's either this, or doing this with you _next_ Saturday, which I would give up my left brain not to do. What do you think?" James asked, and a flicker of a smile passed through his face.

"If we go down… at least I can imagine you going down with me." Monique said, also smiling slightly. James and Monique ducked through a side staircase and were soon out of sight.

That left Nick and Max. He looked at her. "I regret to inform you that we're the ones in the most danger, since I'm carrying my baby here…" He gestured to his jacket where the packet of marijuana was hidden.

…

"This way!" Celeste hissed to Jason, dragging him by the sleeve of his shirt. "We can go through the auxiliary gym and double back through the locker rooms!"

Jason shrugged and ran after her. He could smell her perfume at this close vicinity –peaches. "You, uh, have experience running away?" Jason asked, huffing and puffing. Celeste, on the other hand, wasn't breaking even a sweat. He knew it was the endless hours of cheer practice that had made her so fit, but even so, it was still embarrassing to have less stamina than a _girl_.

"Why, do you?" Celeste said, wincing as she checked her hair in her reflection in a trophy case. Her high ponytail was falling apart, and tiny wisps of blonde hair floated down over her ears. _Be perfect_. Oops.

"Not if you don't count Halo…"

Celeste pulled open the gym door and motioned furiously for Jason to catch up. He did and she closed the door behind them. Jason immediately slumped down on the rubbery floor and started hyperventilating. "Hurry up!" Celeste snapped.

"Give me a second –I don't work out twelve hours a day like some people in this room," Jason panted.

"Well, we still have to go through the locker room to get to the D wing." Celeste folded her arms and looked at Jason lying on the floor, breathing hard herself. She waited until he was breathing more normally and pulled him to his feet.

"Wait a second," Jason said.

"Oh, you can't have to rest _again_." Celeste snapped.

"No, it's just –are we going into the _girls' _locker room?"

"Yeah, why?"

Jason turned purple. "I can't go in there!"

Celeste sighed. "Look, there's no one else in there, and it's not like anyone's going to see _you_ in there – "

"It's not that… I just… it's weird." Jason mumbled. "Can't we go through the boys' locker room?"

"I wish we could, but it's connected to the _other_ side of the gym, which is the opposite direction we're trying to go in. Dig it? This is the only way." Her eyes widened slightly. "And I hear footsteps! Jason, we _have_ to go!"

Jason stood still as a tree trunk, resolutely shaking his head. "No way –I'd rather face GH than go in there."

"Don't be such a fucktard!" Celeste yelled, trying to force him in the door. "Go in or I'll kick your ass!"

Jason didn't doubt she could, and his resolve slackened for one moment. Celeste seized the opportunity and shoved Jason into the door as hard as she could –which was a little too hard. He tripped and fell, taking her with her.

The two of them landed with a loud _thump_ on the floor of the girls' locker room, Celeste on top of Jason.

Celeste lifted herself up from Jason's surprisingly muscular torso, her face red. "Let's… keep moving, shall we?"

…

Monique was _really_ wishing she hadn't picked today to wear her new Gucci stilettos. What the hell was she thinking? It's not like there was anyone she really wanted to _impress_ in detention… but it was second nature for her to look her best. After all, she was labeled as a diva.

But still, every step she took was complete horror on her ankles. As she glanced at James, running next to her in his designer J's, she couldn't help being horribly jealous. Comfort _and_ style. That's all she was ever really asking for.

"So, where do you think we should go?" Monique asked James as they slowed to a stop.

"The computer lab has a back door –we could take that." James suggested.

They entered the computer lab and Monique dimly registered how weird it was that there was no one in there. All those computers, turned off, gathering dust, just waiting for the next batch of students to come and use them. The students that would somehow manage to hack the firewalls and go on porn sites while they fooled the teachers into thinking they were researching D-Day, or whatever.

Monique and James reached the back door of the computer lab, but it was locked "Great." James muttered, crossing his arms. "We're fucked."

"There's a window," Monique pointed. "Just above the door. I know you can't reach it but give me a boost. I could probably climb through and open the door for you."

"You sure?" James asked her.

Monique pulled off her heels. "If it means I can take these off for even a second, it's totally worth it."

"Okay." James cupped his hands and Monique stepped into them. He grunted softly as he raised her up toward the window.

"Don't even think about looking up my skirt, perv," Monique said jokingly.

James turned red, grinning. "Wouldn't dream of it."

He waited, arms aching, until he was sure Monique had a solid grip on the window. He proceeded to watch, mouth falling open, as she climbed through the window with the kind of agility that Catwoman would have, or something.

She smirked at him and waved from the other side.

"Just open the damn door," he mouthed.

He waited for her to drop down from the window and open the door. After a few seconds he heard a loud _thud_ and a moan of pain.

"Monique!" James yelled through the door. "You okay?" The door opened and he ran through to find her lying on the ground, eyes closed. "You okay?" he repeated, heart thumping.

She sat up shakily. "I tried too hard to look cool climbing through a fucking window, and _fuck_, my ankle…" She hissed in pain as she tried to stand.

"Mon… I think it's broken." James said, examining it.

She sighed. "Leave me here. Go save yourself. You're almost to the library, anyway… I'll just tell GH when he catches me that I needed to get some makeup from my locker or some shit like that."

"You kidding? I'm not leaving you. I _couldn't _leave you even if I wanted. Remember what we promised that bastard Walker?" James retorted.

Monique rolled her eyes. "And how do you propose we get back, with my ankle like thi –_woah, _there!"

James had just hefted Monique into his arms. "What?" he asked her, trying to hide the fact that he was mildly panting. "I work out."

Monique grinned. "So do I; otherwise you wouldn't be able to lift me. Don't forget to pick up my shoes, Jethro."

...

"Why'd you pick me?" Max asked, as they hurried down the hallway. "You didn't want to get stuck with Whiny Joe?"

"Nah, I'm not a fan of Doctor Who, anyhow."

Max smiled. "I was talking about Monique, but sure. That works, too."

"I'm a weed dealer," Nick said, eyeing Max with a coy smile. "Were you really that surprised?"

"I was kinda wondering what your deal was. I thought you stabbed someone, you know, 'cause you carry a knife around and all that jazz." Max muttered, grinning. "And that's the sad part, I guess –that I'm not surprised at all."

Nick grinned back, but the beautiful moment was broken by footsteps thundering up the stairs behind them. The two of them tore down the hallway and Nick flung open the door to an unlocked broom closet, pushing Max inside and closing the door behind himself just as heavy footsteps appeared at the start of their hallway.

Max began to appreciate just how closely she was pressed up against Nick. As far as broom closets went, this one was seriously tiny. Her heart began to beat faster for no apparent reason.

Nick held a finger to his lips, signaling that they were to remain quiet until the danger passed. They all but held their breath for the next few moments, waiting for the footsteps to pass the doorway. He wouldn't check a stupid broom closet, right? Right?

Wrong. Max's heart stopped beating altogether when she noticed the doorknob to the closet turning.

* * *

**Little cliffie there for y'all!**

**Surprise middle-of-the-week update! I don't have school today because my teachers are on strike... so here's a little present for everyone. Side note: this is the longest chapter of this story so far.**

**And THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped me by suggesting their favorite colors to wear! I found a prom dress yesterday, and I'm ****_so _****excited! In case anyone wants to know, it's dark blue and BEAUTIFUL. **

**If you didn't want to know, I'm sorry for that last sentence :) But here's something you will want to read -another big THANK YOU to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. I seriously love you guys. Just the fact that you took the time to read something ****_I _****wrote... well, it's amazing. You guys rock on! **

**Catch you on the flip side...**


	16. Chapter 16

**_Last Chapter: _**

_Nick held a finger to his lips, signaling that they were to remain quiet until the danger passed. They all but held their breath for the next few moments, waiting for the footsteps to pass the doorway. He wouldn't check a stupid broom closet, right? Right?_

_Wrong. Max's heart stopped when she noticed the doorknob to the closet turning. _

…

**_MAX_**

Oh no.

Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no –

"Quick!" Nick hissed, shoving me up against the wall. "Follow my lead."

I didn't have enough room to judo-throw him in the stupid closet so I let him cover both of us up with his dark jacket. It was then that I understood his plan. Hopefully we'd look like a random jacket hanging in the corner in the dark of the closet. Of course, if the intruder decided to turn on the light, we'd be screwed.

Nick was holding me against the wall at an uncomfortable angle –I was pressed against a fire alarm, which dug into my lower back, but I knew if I moved even a muscle, it'd all be over.

The lock dug into the doorknob and my heart was running faster than a horse on crack. I could feel Nick's breath on my neck, soft and warm, which just added another layer to the thousands of layers of confusion and fear that I had rolling around my brain. The door opened and the florescent lights from the hallway filtered into the closet in a dull beam marred only by the shadow of our unwanted intruder.

"Damn kids, always runnin' around, thinkin' they run the world…"

The intruder rummaged around the closet, coming within inches of Nick's side a few times, before finding what he was looking for –something that looked suspiciously like a whip. My eyes widened but I didn't dare move a muscle. This guy wasn't GH, which was for sure –the height, build and voice didn't match up. I didn't know _who_ he was –only that he was extremely dangerous.

"Damn teenagers, shoulda stayed home and watched TV, dunno why I'm here for this..."

The intruder picked up the whip and backed out of the door, closing it behind him. I didn't dare move until I heard the click of the lock and footsteps indicating that he was a safe distance away. When it was safe to move I exhaled and slumped against the wall, suddenly exhausted.

"That was close," Nick said casually, leaning against a broom.

"He –the guy who came in –he picked up a whip," I said, shakily standing up. "A _whip_."

Nick frowned. "Max, you're not even high yet."

"I'm serious. This is crazy. This is _insane_."

"_You're_ insane," Nick said, checking his jacket to make sure his weed was still there. "I mean, it's no secret that most of the teachers hate our guts, but why would they need a godforsaken _whip_?"

I felt for the doorknob in the dark, feeling somewhat annoyed at his lack of… surprise. "I'm guessing it's not because some of the teachers like to get seriously kinky in broom closets…"

Nick pretended to barf. "God, Ride, you're disgusting."

I grinned. "C'mon, let's hightail it out of here."

…

**_JASON_**

Celeste and I sped into the library, not talking to each other. I doubted I could ever talk to a girl again after what had happened in the girls' locker room. It was a skill I had developed over many years, with many failed efforts involving sweaty palms (and sweatier other things), many stammered sentences, red faces, and the general feeling of hopelessness and worthlessness. But I had almost perfected the art of talking to the other gender, only to have it all ruined by the school's lead cheerleader getting to second base with me.

You know how people brag about getting to second base and stuff. Or at least, they did in middle school. I was by nature several years behind on the whole dating thing. I wondered if Celeste was thinking about the Incident. I wondered if it was possible that I could get any redder than I currently was. I wondered if I could get past the level seventeen quest on Destiny without sacrificing my premium Warlock armor.

I wondered all these things to avoid talking to Celeste, because I could only make things more awkward than they already were.

So I was beyond thankful when James and Monique appeared, even though he was carrying her like Luke Skywalker carried Princess Leia over the… god, forget it.

"What happened?" Celeste asked, as James set Monique down gently in her chair.

"Well, since you asked, we were locked in the computer lab and I had to crawl through a window to open the door for Mr. Big n' Tall here, and I fell and probably broke my ankle," Monique said, putting her foot up on the desk.

"When did you guys get here?" James asked, looking at me. I cleared my throat.

"Just a few minutes ago."

James looked around the room. "Walker and the new chick not back yet?"

Celeste shook her head. "No, they're not. I hope nothing happened to them." She shrugged under the incredulous gaze James was giving her. "What? It's like Nick said –we're all in this together."

The four of us sat in silence for a few moments. It was super weird not having all six of us in here. Even though we weren't friends, I felt like a part of me was missing if _they_ were missing. It was kind of like the feeling when your last teammate in Call of Duty dies. The feeling of being all alone. I found myself praying that the two of them, Max and Nick, would make it back safely.

And just like that, there was a knock on the library door. My heart leaped into my throat when the door flew open and the vice principal stormed in. The door closed behind him with a _thud_. His eyes swirled crazily as he stared around the room. "Aha! I _knew_ you yahoos were up to something… where are the other two troublemakers?"

"What're you talking about, sir?" Monique asked after a very shocked pause.

GH walked over to the table where Max and Nick had been sitting previously and sat down in Nick's exact spot, grinning madly as though he had stolen a million-dollar lottery ticket from a homeless man. "Maxine Ride… and Nicholas Walker. They had such bright futures –well, the _girl_ did anyway. It's a shame I'll have to expel them."

"_What_?" I spluttered. "Why would you expel them?"

GH looked at me pityingly. "And why does it matter to you, Mr. Crane? You are not friends, you are merely in detention together. You do not have any invested emotional ties to these people whatsoever. You all are part of your own groups, your _cliques_, and to talk to other people outside of that in-group is considered blasphemous. So I suggest that you pick up your pencil and get to work on that essay, since you only have a few hours left." He crossed his arms and glared at all of us imposingly.

I had completely forgotten about the essay. I made eye contact with Celeste, James, and Monique. It was then that we all heard a small banging at the door. My eyes widened when I saw a familiar head of black hair outside the small window in the library door.

Okay. Operation Distract Gunther-Hagen was officially underway.

"Well, you can't expel them," I said, surprising myself. Oh, why did I have to choose this particular moment to become more outspoken? _I_ could get expelled for talking back to the vice principal –or worse, he could _fail _me.

GH leaned forward interestedly. "And why not?"

I moved toward the stacks of books in the back, hoping he'd keep his attention on me and not at the library door. Thankfully, I judged his attention span correctly. He kept his piggy eyes trained on me as I made my way to the back of the room. "Because… they didn't break one of the five main codes of conduct."

I motioned with my eyes for James to spring up and open the library door to let the others in, although how they were going to get into their seats without GH noticing was a complete puzzle. "What five codes of conduct?" GH spat, standing up. Perfect.

I retreated into the stacks of books. "Well, there's arson, drug abuse, sexual abuse, excessive failing and… vandalism." I bullshitted. GH started following me.

Please, let the plan work.

**_JAMES_**

Okay. We had to somehow get the idiots Max and Walker into the room without GH noticing. Jason had already begun the distraction, leading the principal into the back of the library, so all I had to do was open the door and let them in. Simple, right?

I tugged on the library door and it opened with a loud _creak_. I looked back, terrified, that GH would hear the noise and come running, but we seemed to be in the clear. Nick and Max nearly fell into the library, and I motioned for them to be quiet and hide behind a bookshelf.

Celeste jumped up and helped me slowly close the door so that it wouldn't creak again, while Jason still blathered at the top of his lungs about the protocol for expulsion. I had to hand it to that kid –he could really bullshit. I guessed it was his brains that helped him.

"Listen, Crane, I'm done hearing about this bullshit. You _will_ go to your seat right now, otherwise it's _your_ back I'm expelling."

Jason all but ran back to his seat, and GH followed. He glared unpleasantly at us. "I'm going to be waiting outside the door, in my office. I can see whoever enters and exits this room from there. When those two enter, and I find that you've been lying to me… then it's _sayonara_ to everyone. Understand?"

Jason coughed.

GH smiled unpleasantly. "You'd better hope your fellow students in detention _never_ show up, then." He left, closing the door behind him.

I waited a few seconds before motioning for Max and Nick to come out.

"What the hell's the matter with you guys?" I asked them furiously. "This is one party you _cannot _be fashionably late to!" I glanced at Nick to see if he thought that joke was funny, at least, but he just stared at me back.

"We were detained in a broom closet." Max started to explain.

"Oh, so you were off making out while the rest of us had to cover to save your asses, huh?" Celeste shot at them.

Nick smirked. "Max would rather throw me against a wall. We had to hide in the closet to hide from one of the staff. Not sure who he was, but Max here said he had a _whip_. "

"GH was ready to _expel_ you," Monique said, looking fearfully towards the door. "He'll be totally mad when he sees that you two are actually in here."

"What're you talking about?" Nick asked, sitting down in his spot and putting his feet up. "We were here the whole time. Dare to claim otherwise?"

"All this for a packet of weed, huh?" Celeste muttered. "Do you even still have it?"

Nick pulled it out of his jacket. "The one thing I had to save, no matter what."

I stared at it. "You really want to blaze it up when the vice principal's at his maddest? There couldn't be a worse time!"

Nick shrugged. "I think there couldn't be a _better_ time to do this. Who's ready?"

* * *

**Whaddya think?**


	17. Chapter 17

"The more I want in, the more I want in

The less I know, the less I know

But I'm forgotten, I'm forgotten

I'll be alone, I'll be alone, I'll be alone, With everybody watching me"

\- From _Everybody's Watching Me_ by The Neighbourhood

* * *

**_NICK_**

The weed was on the table –literally. It was enough weed to kill a horse, enough weed to addict an entire colony of Smurfs, and it was definitely enough weed for six teenagers who were more than bored of education, of detention, and of life.

I dunno what I expected –everyone to agree to blaze it up, and we'd have a weed party or something? No way. I had kind of run out of big ideas and big speeches, and the six of us just kinda stared at each other like, _What the hell's going on_?

Just then, the library door twisted open. I grabbed the weed packet and looked around for a suitable place to hide it –somewhere the dragon wouldn't even dream of looking.

And then I found the place.

"Max," I whispered urgently. "Shove this down your shirt."

She looked at me like I was high –well, not yet, I wasn't. "Are you mad?"

"GH already suspects that I'm up to something. He doesn't know enough about you to care about you. Shove it down your shirt so that he won't find it out!"

Max scowled at me, but she shoved the weed package down her flannel anyway. "You owe me _so_ much, Walker."

I flopped down in my seat just as the door opened, and GH stomped in looking livid. His eyes met mine and I could have sworn they were spitting fire –in any case, he was spitting _spit_ as he opened his mouth, his damn saliva flying everywhere. "Walker!"

I put on my most nonchalant face. The angel from heaven face. The face that I had learned so masterfully from eons of getting into trouble. "Sir?"

He looked beyond mad –he looked downright crazy. "You… you… _dare_ sneak back in here after leaving?!"

"I'm not sure what you mean by _leaving_, sir. I've been in this hellhole since the minute this shitty detention started." I said, past caring about my language in front of a teacher. GH couldn't even be considered in the position of a teacher. He _could_, however, be considered for the position of angry, fat troll lurking under bridges and demanding tolls.

The vice principal (so-called) smirked and cleared his throat, looking around at the others now. "Can any of you look me in the eye, and _honestly_ tell me that this –" he jerked his thumb at me –"has been in this library since the moment the detention started?"

Jason was looking at his feet, James was looking at the ceiling, and Max wouldn't even lift up her head.

That's it, then. I was going to get expelled, and GH was going to make sure I got arrested. Unjustly. This whole universe was just a piece of crap –

"I can," I looked up in surprise to see Monique standing up and looking GH straight in the eye. "He was here the entire time. It's not _his _fault you're automatically prejudiced against him because of what he dresses like or looks like. He's the one who's been keeping us all in check. Making sure we don't talk, making sure we actually _write_ the damn essay, making sure we know who we are. If you're going to expel him, you're going to have to expel _everyone_ in this detention." She glared at GH furiously.

Monique gave me a tiny nod at the end of her extraordinary statement and my heart filled with gratitude. But the moment ended too soon as the vice prinicipal turned back to me.

Gunther-Hagen looked… maybe _flabbergasted_ was a good word to insert there. Absolutely mystified. "So. Walker. You might have convinced the others that you're a _normal _guy, with normal guy problems, and you're just misunderstood by everyone else… But I know you for who you really are. A broken down, washed-up, has-been whose so-called glory days are nothing more than skipping class and bumming out cigarettes in the parking lot behind the nearest Walgreens." He turned to the room at large. "Mr. Wisecrack here thinks it's _funny_ to pull a fire alarm during standardized testing. I regret to inform you that you will be without your newest… _friend_… for the rest of the day."

"I'm _so_ frickin' pissed," I said glibly.

"Everything's a joke to you, right, Walker? False alarms… false alarms are _hilarious_… until they're not false anymore."

"Are you saying you'll light me on fire? Because that's rather threatening, sir."

GH purpled. "What if your house… your family… what if your _tobacco_ caught on fire, to be destroyed?"

I grinned. "That's impossible. It's down Max's shirt."

GH eyed Max, who was determinedly keeping a straight face. "You think this is funny? You think this is a joke? You think you're… _cool as fuck_? Look at you. You're nothing but a street bum. Filth on the bottom of normal society's shoes. You gonna cry, little Nicky? You gonna tear up and run to your daddy? Let's go."

He tried to grab my arm but I wrenched it out of his grasp. "Get your fucking hands off of me, _sir_."

…

**_MAX_**

I waited until they were safely out of the library and into the hall before pulling the dope out of my shirt and laying it on the table. "I'm going after him."

James looked at me like I was insane. "You're not high, are you? You saw how mad GH was! You can't go after him –he'll expel you, too!"

"I don't care. I can't leave Nick like that. I have no idea what's the vice principal's problem, but he's damn crazy."

Before they could say anything, I pressed the weed into Jason's hands and ran outside the library door.

…

Gunther-Hagen shoved the kid into an unoccupied broom closet, keeping a firm grip on his collar. "Now you listen to me, you little shit. That's the last time you make me look bad in front of those kids, all right? I make nearly fifty thousand dollars a year. I have a house, and a car, and a stable lifestyle, and I'm not going to throw it away on an idiot like you. But just you wait until you grow up and you're outta here and you're probably locked up in a penitentiary somewhere. I'm gonna be there, and I'm going to smash you so hard, you'll be begging for your mother over and over again."

Walker swallowed. "You're threatening me. I could call the cops."

GH smirked. "You think they'll believe you? You think they'll take _your _word over _mine_? _I'm_ the one with a teaching degree. _You're_ the one who's failing all of your classes. _I'm _the one who's respected around here. _You're_ the one who no one gives a shit about. Oh, you think you're so strong, so tough? Throw one at me right now. Do it."

GH leered at the boy, who shook his head. "I'm not hitting you."

"Coward… you're just a fucking coward, then, aren't you?"

GH left the boy standing in the broom closet and locked the door behind him.

* * *

**Extra crispy for being a day late... Thoughts? Next few chapters will be longer (because there's a truckload of action coming up) **

**On a side note... I STILL haven't read MR Forever (and I call myself a fan...). Is it worth reading? Or should I pretend it doesn't exist and be satisfied with the stupid Nevermore ending? I'm deff reading it either way once I have time, but I just want to know what other people think.**

**THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE FOR OVER 100 REVIEWS AND 10,000 VIEWS! Rock on, and I'll try to update soon (again, excited to finish this!)**


	18. Chapter 18

**_MAX_**

I crept down the hall as fast as I could, heart thumping. I had seen GH yank Nick by his collar down the hallway, and then both of them disappeared. With my luck, GH would pop up right behind me, scare the crap out of me, and then expel me without blinking an eye. Forget the Grim Reaper. My school's _vice principal_ was the scariest thing I had ever known.

But it wasn't the time to freak out about myself. Nick was in the man's clutches, and I had to find him before… well, I didn't want to say it was too late, but…

…

**_CELESTE_**

The hallway was empty. I peered out the window of the library door, not daring to open it. "She's not in sight," I announced to the room at large, turning around and slumping against the closed door.

James groaned. "That's it, then. They're both expelled. Gone. Poof."

"Don't talk like that," Monique snapped. "They're too smart to get caught."

"And they're too smart to get their legs broken," James snapped back, and Monique turned purple.

"I did it to save your sorry ass!" Monique yelled, trying to claw herself to a standing position.

"Guys, stop yelling!" I said hastily, exchanging glances with Jason, who had been pretty quiet up to this point. "And stop glaring at each other, too. It's bad feng shui."

"What are you _now_, a hippie?" James muttered, crossing his arms.

I flopped back in my seat, worried sick for Max. I wasn't even sure why I cared this much about a girl who, just this morning, was a complete stranger to me. But we had been through a lot together. In a weird way, having a psychopath for a vice principal (read: overseer) was a good thing, because it brought all of us together.

But we weren't friends or anything. That much was evidenced by the way James and Monique were huffing at each other. And suddenly, something clicked for me. "Now, I'm not a mind reader or anything, but did you guys use to date?" I asked them.

Monique sniffed. James stared at his hands. I waited for a confirmation, and then James said, "Yeah."

Bullseye. "What… happened? If you don't mind me asking?"

Monique eyed her ex-boyfriend. "We fell apart. Happens to people all the time. I'm sure it's happened to _you_ and your horde of boyfriends."

I winced. "Nope. Never happened."

Monique scoffed. "Do you really expect me to believe that _all_ your breakups were turbulent, stormy, times of hell? I mean, _I'd know_. I _am_ the Gossip Queen of the school, after all." I dimly noted that Monique sounded a little sad when she said that. "And the only breakup of yours I've heard dirt was last year when you broke up with Ari."

I winced. "You heard that we had sex in the boys' locker room?"

"Honey, I _started_ that rumor."

I stared at her. "What?" That rumor had nearly ruined me! It had eaten away at my cheerleading career, and I had had to work _so hard_ to get back on top! And it was all started by Ms. Bitch Queen right here?!

Monique shrugged. "Drama was getting a bit dry, so I whispered some things in the ears of the right people. I didn't mention _you _explicitly, but people are able to put two and two together."

"But that's not true! Do you know what that rumor did to me? I was nearly ruined! And I _never_ had sex in the boys' locker room. I've never even had sex!" I practically screamed at her.

James raised his eyebrows. "You're a virgin?"

I scowled. "What, like that's a bad thing?"

He shrugged. "No, it's not, but I just thought…"

"What? That because I have to wear short skirts and show my ass off all day, every day, that boys were actually _riding_ it? Here's a lesson for you, bub –_we're not all what we look like_."

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Jason added helpfully. I blushed when I realized that he was actually there, because he had been quiet for so long I had almost forgotten about the… Incident.

I glared at Monique. I wasn't done with her. "And here's another factoid for you. In case you want to spread it around the school like wildfire. Ari? He was my first and _only_ boyfriend. Yeah. I've only dated one boy in my life."

She opened her mouth to shoot something back at me. "Well… _I _only had my first kiss when I was sixteen!"

I blinked. James blinked. I was pretty sure Jason blinked. "What?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Last year. First kiss. And you all think I'm such a slut, opening my legs up to more guys than the hairs on Tom Cruises' head? Well… _I'm a virgin, too_."

James shook his head wildly. "No, you're not!"

Monique whirled on him. "You wanna bet? I've never done it with _anyone_. Not with you, not with anyone else. I've gotten as far as undressing… but I chickened out."

James threw his hands in the air. "What the hell?"

I glared at him. "Spill it, jock."

He stared at the rest of us, and then sighed. "Me, too. Always been too scared to take the final step."

I cackled. "That makes three of us. Jason, are you a virgin?"

He didn't even blink. "Guys, I'm wearing a _Doctor Who _shirt. What d'you think?"

That was it. I grinned. "We should form a club, then."

"But I _have_ dated more girls than Celeste has," Jason said, grinning slyly at me. I glared at him.

"Who?"

"Well, in freshman year, I dated Kate…"

"That incredibly smart Asian girl who graduated early?" Monique asked, adeptly listening. It seemed her realm of gossip ended with the popular kids.

Jason blushed slightly. "Uh, yeah. She was… a bit much. Even for me, I know. And last year I dated Tess."

James stared at Jason. "Tess… the soccer player Tess?"

Jason turned redder. "It was a secret relationship, and it didn't last long We didn't want anyone to know, and she was so busy with the varsity team and I was busy with robotics –"

James slammed his palms down on the table. "He's lying. He's totally lying."

"James, shut up," I snapped. "I for one completely trust you, Jason. But it would be nice if you could show us pictures."

"But he's _lying_," James said loudly, his hands turning into fists. He stood up abruptly, towering at over six feet.

"Woah –why do you have a stick up your butt, dude?" Jason asked James nervously.

James turned red. "I… used to have a crush on Tess. Last year. Probably when you were dating her. It's just… _weird_, that's all."

Monique grinned. "Woah… this is amazing gossip. The _jock_ couldn't get a girl that the nerd already _had_?"

"He's not a nerd," I said, before I could stop myself. "He's just a really nice guy," I grinned at Jason, and he blushed.

James sat back down in his seat, grinning. There was a content pause, and then he ruined it by asking, "Okay, that Max girl's definitely a virgin, but what d'you reckon about Walker?"

…

**_NICK _**

"Turd bucket." It had been fifteen minutes since the dragon had locked me in a broom closet which was smaller than his dick and probably smelled a lot like it, too. I was sitting on a overturned bucket, and was thinking of the worst insults to hurl at him. Of course, after fifteen minutes, I had run out of the choicier, more vulgar ones, and had to settle for elementary-school-level ones such as 'turd bucket'.

I threw a disgustingly wet rag against the door. "Barf breath."

It was getting colder in here. Was that crapfart (hello, third grade) actually turning the heat down? I'd have him sued for this. Except, I didn't have a lawyer, or anyone who actually gave a fuck about me. That principal knew what he was doing.

I stood up and craned my neck at the ceiling. Maybe there was a vent or something I could crawl out of. I mean, I didn't have to stand for this. When GH asked me to punch him, I have to admit, I was sorely tempted to give him my best hook shot and floor him completely. Maybe break his nose. He deserved it, after all.

But I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't fight, didn't hurt anyone, unless I was in immediate danger of _DYING_.

Confession Time: because of that logic, because I absolutely refused to hurt anyone… guess how many people I had beaten up in my life. Just guess.

Yeah. You're right. Big fat zero.

And how many beatings had I _taken _in my life? Hundreds, courtesy of my abomination of a father. So I could tolerate pain. It was a miracle, really, that I didn't end up a feral child, the way I was raised. It was a miracle I could think and talk and walk and act like a general asshole so people would keep their distance and not find out how… _broken_ I really was on the inside.

Anyway. Time to stop wallowing in self-pity. I would have plenty of time to do that later once I figured out a way out of here.

_If _I didn't die in here. The smell was so bad I was pretty sure it was toxic. GH, wash your junk once in a while. Jeez.

…

**_MAX_**

I found him.

The storage room didn't have any windows, but I knew for sure it was him. Who else says 'turd bucket' and 'barf breath'? Maybe a really angry third-grader, but this was a high school, not an elementary school, thank the heavens.

Only… how was I supposed to get to him?

I tried pulling the door, but it was stuck fast. And no doubt GH had the only key. Man, that guy seriously needed to get locked up… or _something_. Why were all the adults in this freak show of a school… _freaks_?

"Nick," I hissed through the keyhole, hoping he could hear me. "_Nick_."

The swearing stopped suddenly, and I heard something get knocked over as he presumably made his way towards the door. "What the hell –_Max_?"

I grinned in spite of myself. "Uh, hey?"

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Trying to figure out a way to bust you out," I replied. "Maybe a battering ram?"

I could hear his laughter from the other side of the door, loud and clear and… wonderful. I mean, Nick gave the impression that he rarely laughed, so it was a really nice sound to hear. It tugged at the corners of my own mouth. "Wow, Maxie. I could seriously kiss you right now."

"No you can't," I said, grinning widely. "You seem to have forgotten there's a door in the way."

"Then help me find a way out. Just so I can kiss you," was his serious reply. "And this goddamn room smells like old guy penis."

I winced at that word, but shook it off. Forget the past, Max. You're in the _now_. And it would do better for you to remain alert, cause GH could come back at any time. "Okay… uh, I'll try picking the lock."

I pulled out a hairpin from my pocket and started trying to pick the lock, but I had never picked a lock before, so it wouldn't be too far from the truth to say that it wasn't working.

"Any luck, Maxie?"

"Call me that again, and I'll leave you in there," I threatened.

Nick scoffed. "No you won't. You'll stay until I'm good and safe and out and in your arms."

I felt stung, because he had hit the nail on the head. How did he know that. "What makes you think that?" I asked him.

Nick was silent for a moment, and then he said, very quietly, so I had to press my ear against the keyhole to hear, "Because you're the only one who's ever come back for me."

…

Jeb was walking stiffly down the main hallway in the first floor, his special weapon shoved deep in a pocket of his janitor's suit. He had no idea why GH put up with the kids' shit the way he did –with empty threats and taunts and more and more damn detentions.

It had all been so much easier back in the good old days. When disciplining kids was much easier than giving them a supervised detention. When all it took was one _whack_… and the kids would be begging for mercy.

Jeb eyed the library door and a malicious grin spread over his gaunt face.

The good ol' days had used many methods of discipline, but his personal favorite?

Whipping.

* * *

**So I have some exciting news... **

**I have FINISHED writing Surviving Detention! That's right -FINISHED with a capital F. I'll be updating regularly from now on, at least twice a week, so this story'll be finished before summer gets too hot (fingers crossed). And don't worry about Jeb or GH or anyone else -all loose ends will be tied, there's still a couple huge cliffhangers, some new things to learn, and at LEAST one huge plot twist, not to mention things getting pretty hot and heavy with our favorite detentionees... ;) Bottom line is, if you've stuck with me this far, you'll make it to the end, and hopefully you'll have as great a time as I did writing it. **


	19. Chapter 19

**_MAX_**

_"__You're the only one who's ever come back for me."_

Man, I was ridiculously touched by his statement. Like… ridiculously touched. "Nick?" I asked quietly, wincing as I dropped the hairpin once _again_. "You still there?"

He barked out a bitter laugh from the other side of the door. "Where'd you think I went –Mars? I'm still here, sweetheart."

I grinned ruefully at the word _sweetheart_. Two could play at this game. "All right, honey."

"Keep talkin' to me. So I can take my mind off of how horrible it smells in here. You'd think this school would spring for some Febreeze." Nick said.

I grinned. "Favorite scent in the world?"

"You're expecting me to say weed, aren't you? Well, it's actually the smell of a fresh tennis ball."

I stared through the door, in the general direction of where I believed Nick to be standing, incredulously. "Tennis balls?" Dammit, I dropped the pin again.

"I used to play."

"No kidding?"

"Yeah. 'Till I was about ten or eleven. And then my dad lost his job and all hell broke loose… like I already told you guys. Or more like you guys forced out of me."

I cleared my throat to avoid swearing loudly. Stupid pin. "Were you any good?"

"Yeah. I _was_."

I bet he was. I bet he was the best player in his league. Just like me. I was quickly realizing that Nick and I were actually pretty damn similar. I was silent for a moment, still working on the keyhole with the pin… until it broke. Crap. "Uh, Nick? Time to play Good News/ Bad News. What do you wanna hear first?"

"The bad news."

"Uh, well… the bad news is that half of my hairpin got stuck in the keyhole, so now you can't open the door even _with_ a key."

Nick snorted. "Even by _my_ standards that's pretty bad news. Congratulations, Maxie. You've cornered me, as I'm sure that was your intention. What's the good news?"

"There's a vent."

"A _vent_."

"Yeah, a _vent_. You can look all high and mighty, but you won't get out any other way."

There were some crashing noises as Nick moved some boxes or some stuff to look for the vent that would get him out of the room. "You're lucky there's one in here."

"Oh, thank God." I muttered.

I waited and heard some clunking noises as Nick raised himself into the vent in the and started to pad his way across the roof.

"Max?" I heard him, and it was weird because his voice was coming from the freaking ceiling.

"What?"

"I think you're a little crazy. You're trying to kill me. The school's flimsy cardboard ceilings aren't enough to hold my weight –they're literally creaking evilly underneath me. It's pitch-black in here and I have no idea where I'm going. And you know what? It's all your fault."

"Just follow my voice," I said. "We'll be back in no time."

"It's like being a fucking cave explorer in here," Nick grumbled. He wasn't lying about the flimsiness- the ceiling tiles were making cracking noises above my head.

The library was on the other side of the floor. How was he supposed to crawl his way there? "You're almost there," I lied. He'd never know.

"You're lying. You're such a liar."

"I'm not _lying_."

I heard a chuckle from the kid in the vents. "Max, I can tell when you're lying. Your voice sorta lifts up at the end of the sentence. Like when you said you didn't want to go out with me… I could tell you were lying then, too."

Egoist bastard. "What if I left you here?" I demanded at the ceiling. "You wouldn't know where to go. You'd be stuck in the dark."

"You're not going to leave."

"I _will_ if you keep being so annoying." I snapped.

The ceiling laughed. "You're lying again. You really need to get that voice lilt thing under control." A pause, and then he said, "And now you're blushing, aren't you?"

"Okay, do you have a mirror or something?" I demanded, looking up, face red.

He chuckled again. "I just know you better than you know yourself, Maxie."

"You're pissing me off," I muttered.

"_I _think you just have to be open to me and my ways. Example –one time, there was this chick that I was chatting up at the park –_Shit_!"

It happened so fast, I didn't have time to dive out of the way. Which was bad, because the next second, the plaster ceiling cracked completely and Nick fell along with it –right on top of me. I hit the floor with a _whoosh_. "Ow," I whispered. I was going to _kill_ that kid.

Nick grinned. "_That_ was not the way I wanted this to happen." And that's when I realized his arms were resting on my boobs.

Using my kickboxing training, I flung Nick off of me with surprising strength. He crashed into the lockers behind him and stood up, looking dazed. It was hard to tell what was redder –my face or the blood rushing to my ears. "It's not funny," I said, crossing my arms. The last time anyone had gotten to second base with me was when Dylan had _assaulted_ me. And I didn't want to go down that road again. Not with Nick, not with anyone. For as long as I lived.

I flinched at Nick's touch. He put his hand on my shoulder gently, and said, "Max."

"What?" I asked, not looking at him, but at the hole in the ceiling.

"You okay?"

Tears sprang into my eyes, for some odd reason. "No." I said quietly. "I'm not."

I glanced at Nick, to see if he had that stupid smirk or that stupid crooked smile on his face, or if he was about to say something stupid and sexist that would make me push him away forever. But he didn't. Instead, he looked at me seriously. "What can I do?"

I reeled away from his lingering touch. "Nothing." I said forcefully, backing away from him. "You can't do anything, and you can't help me."

Nick took a step forward, reducing the safety distance between us. "_Max_."

I walked backwards until my back was pressed up against the row of lockers. Crap, crap, _crap_. I was trapped, and Nick was still coming closer. I tensed up, ready for a fight. I wasn't going to let California happen to me again.

Nick paused when he was a few feet away. "What's the problem?" he asked me quietly.

"I… I hate you," I said, voice shaking. "I hate you so much."

My voice lilted up at the end of the sentence.

But he didn't notice. "That's a shame," Nick said slowly, looking deep into my eyes. "Because even though you're a pain in the ass sometimes… I feel the opposite way about you."

I gulped. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." My God, he was even closer. What was he going to do? What was _I _going to do? "You can tell me anything, Max." he whispered, and what terrified me was that he was within whispering distance now.

"I can't," I whispered back, still pressed up against the wall.

"You really hate me?"

I stared at him, at his dark eyes flecked with gold, and he was within close enough range that I could have _counted_ the gold flecks in his eyes if I wanted to. A nonsensical noise, somewhere between a grunt and a scream, escaped my lips. I was paralyzed, frozen with terror. Partly because I wanted this to happen, and partly because I knew this _couldn't _happen –not after what Dylan had done to me.

"That's a shame," Nick whispered again, and now I could feel his breath, warm and comforting. And I could almost feel his mouth…

And then his lips pressed against mine. I couldn't even tell you what it felt like, because my mind short-circuited and I shoved Nick away with all the strength I could muster up from years of kickboxing.

He staggered backwards, looking completely flabbergasted. "Max… _are you okay_?".

For I had just crumpled onto the ground, sobbing.

* * *

**I'm sorry for how short the past few chapters have been. This one was originally 3,000+ words but I cut it short because I didn't think one chapter could handle an intense Max/Fang scene ****_and_**** the happenstance in the library at the same time. Not if I want the rest of the story to be intriguing as well. **

**I'm hoping chapters'll get longer soon -but I haven't divided up the chapters even though I've finished writing the story so they're really going to start varying in length from here on out.**

**I've also started a blog for my stories! It's a work in progress because I basically started it yesterday... but if you want to check it out there's a link on my profile. I'll be posting things related to writing, stories in general, and... I dunno exactly, but it's a thing that exists :) **


	20. Chapter 20

**UPDATE: I posted the early version of this yesterday, not the full, heartfelt-conversation version. There's no excuse for my blunder -it's just sloppy posting on my part. Anyways, I'm psyched with all the reviews that said I did the interaction perfectly, but you guys are really too kind. **

**Here's the _real_ interaction between Max and Fang. Enjoy. **

* * *

**I wanted to point out something Infinityworlds mentioned in a review, about hating Dylan. Yes, in this story, he's a D-bag and an A-hole and all the rest of the alphabet, but I really hope this doesn't change your mind about him being sweet because he _is_ sweet... in canon, anyway. I agree with you 100% -in the MR books, Dylan is horribly misunderstood and I like his character. There, I said it. **

**And to ****Smiles Burn in the Styx****... you might need tissues down the road... but I dunno. **

**Thanks to everyone else who reviewed (you guys make me smile), and here's the next chapter. **

* * *

**_MONIQUE_**

"So you and James just sort of 'fell apart', huh?" Celeste asked me, checking her makeup. We were both in the bathroom because I had to go, and Celeste knew all about the unspoken rule that you never let a girlfriend go the bathroom alone. _Never_.

That, and I needed help hobbling to and fro the bathroom –stupid twisted ankle and all that.

So she tagged along, which made me victim of what I was sure was going to be a very unpleasant conversation.

I sighed. "Yeah. Listen, I don't really wanna talk –"

"Well, what happened? I mean, he's smart, good-looking… for a jock, anyway, and he's nice and everything –"

"We broke up," I said through gritted teeth. "End of story."

But of course it wasn't the end of the story. Celeste leaned on the gross tiled countertop next to the sink and looked at me appraisingly. I didn't like that look –it was like she was staring into my soul. It was like she was reading my mind.

"Monique," she said loudly, even though I was three feet away from her. I jumped and smeared my mascara. Dammit girl…

"What?" I snarled, beginning to do damage control.

"You still have feelings for him, don't you?"

Okay, now I was _convinced_ this girl was a mind reader. But one thing I learned by being the Queen B (which stood for Queen _Bitch_) of this school, was to never lose your calm. "What makes you think that?" I asked nonchalantly, wiping the last of the mascara off of my eyes.

"You know, you're beautiful naturally," Celeste said, pulling the mascara out of my grasp. "Look at yourself."

So I looked at myself, and I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Without my signature eye makeup, my eyes were… boring. Dull and brown and normal-sized. She just wanted me to look bad in front of her. "Yeah, right. I've been wearing makeup since the seventh grade. I think I can decide for myself better than you can." I said, pulling the mascara back out of Celeste's hand. I grabbed the wrong end and black liner got all over my hands.

"I'm serious," Celeste said, and she _did_ sound dead serious. "You look gorgeous naturally. I've never seen you without three layers of makeup on before."

I sighed. "You want me to go natural? Fine, I'll go natural." I pulled off my fake lashes, recapped the mascara, and washed the black off of my hands. I looked like a bronzed potato.

"So you _do _like James."

"How did we get from that to this?" I demanded.

"I can tell by the way you look at him. You don't have to worry –he likes you, too." Celeste smiled. "He carried you bridal-style all the way back to the room, which has to count for _something_."

"What are you, a mind reader?" I demanded.

Celeste grinned. "Well… I _am_ very intuitive."

"You remember when we were all in this bathroom a few hours ago, and I called you a basic bitch?" I asked her casually.

"Yeah, and I called you a hot mess."

"Well… I take it back. You're a pretty complex bitch, Celeste."

She laughed. "Thanks, Mon. And you're… a pretty sexy mess. Even _without_ makeup."

I looked into the mirror one last time. "You know what? You might be right –no, who am I kidding? I look like a burnt piece of toast."

...

**_JAMES_**

"There's no way in hell Walker's a virgin," I said, even though no one seemed to be listening to me. "I mean, even if I _did_ give him the benefit of the doubt… let's face it. What are the odds that someone from his background actually practices abstinence? He probably does it as a hobby."

Jason winced. "That's a pretty disgusting hobby."

I looked at him curiously. "Even more disgusting than building robots out of aluminum cans? I'm kidding –to be completely honest, now that we're sharing 'secrets' and 'feelings' and whatnot, I think Robotics Club is really cool. Like, _really_ cool."

Jason turned to face me excitedly. "You should join! It would be so awesome if you did! Like, the best varsity soccer player in the school, joining Robotics Club… and you're not going to do that," he said sadly, seeing the look on my face.

I shrugged. "Jase, man… I can't. You know that."

He sighed. "Yeah, I do."

There was a pause, where I felt like a general asshole, and Jason turned around to face the front. "Hey," I said after a moment. "What're you in for?"

Jason grinned. "You're saying that like I got arrested."

I shrugged. "I figured… getting detention was even _worse _than being arrested. It goes on your permanent record and stuff, you know?"

Jason shook his head, still grinning. "Man, I ain't no Hermione Granger. Although everyone thinks I am… What is it? Is it the glasses? The 'nerd' clothes? The awkward personality?"

I scratched my chin. "Hmm. I dunno. Maybe a combination of all three. And let me tell you something. Once someone actually gets to know you, you're not that awkward anymore. Now, since we're friends and all that crap, dish the dirt. What're you in here for?"

Jason looked at the ground, mildly abashed. "I got caught stealing."

I nearly fell out of my chair. "_What_?!"

He purpled. "I don't really wanna talk about it."

"No –you have to go on!" I said urgently.

He sighed. "Well… I was trying to make my dad's car go faster because of this stupid drag race me and my friends were having. My dad drives a 1998 Camry, so there was no way I was winning that. So I had an… idea. There were these cans of nitrous oxide in the storage room." He paused and looked at me. "You've seen the movie _Turbo_, right? The one with the snail that swallows some and then goes faster than cars?"

I nodded. "Yeah –I have a little sister."

"Well… I put some in my dad's car, but it didn't work the way I thought it would. I crashed into a tree _and_ got caught by the school 'cause some guy ratted me out. I got my license revoked by my parents for a month, and I had to come to detention." He smiled bitterly. "Other kids go out, have sex, get drunk, do weed…" He gestured vaguely to Walker's supply still lying on the table. "_I _get caught for the stupidest things. I give up on being a teenager. Just let me become a middle-aged, cranky adult already."

"Man, you don't want that," I said, grinning. "You've seen GH at his worst."

"To be honest, I don't think we've seen his worst yet." Jason said, and I laughed out loud.

Just then, the girls entered the room, finally returning from their super-long bathroom break. I swear, the girls' bathrooms must be as hard to reach as the tip of Mount Everest; that's how long they take in there.

Monique turned around to say hey, and my mouth nearly fell open. Her face was completely _devoid_ of makeup –she had even gotten rid of the fake lashes she always wore. And the only reason I knew that was because when we used to date, we used to make out a lot, and her lashes would always tickle my face. She grinned at my reaction. "You like it?"

"You… look _great_." I said. Because it was true, she really did. She was naturally beautiful.

But what was I talking about? We had already broken up, it was over, kaput. No time to be having those kinds of thoughts.

"We're gonna have to be quiet –I saw the janitor in the hallway," Celeste said, smiling at me knowingly.

"The janitor? The weirdo guy that hangs around the school all the time?" Jason asked.

"The one and only," a hoarse voice said, and we turned around to see a man in a blue custodial suit slink into the library, his hands deep into his pockets. He smiled at us –actually, it was more of a leer –and I felt my heartbeat rise. "Then again, I _wouldn't_ be the one and only if this school would just hire me an assistant. Stupid budget cuts. They have enough money for a new _soccer net_ every season, but not for another custodian. And to answer your comment, young man," he said, turning on Jason, "the reason I 'hang around the school all the time' is because no one _else_ is going to clean up after the mess you bratty kids make every single day, without fail."

…

**_JASON_**

I gulped. Being yelled at –hell, even being pointed a finger at made me nervous like all get-out. The janitor stared at me for a scary moment, and I could practically see the grease dripping down his hair. God, I hoped that wasn't what I thought it was. I was about to hide under the desk when he removed his hook-nosed glare from me and stared around the room.

"I thought there were six of you," he said, staring at each of the others in turn. "Started killing each other off, did ya?" He grinned at this ridiculous proposition. What the hell, man?! It's not like this was Star Wars, or the Hunger Games!

"Who are you?" I would award Celeste the Bravest (and Most Stupid) trophy. She glared at the janitor right back at him like they were locked in a freaking death match.

He grinned. "Why, I've been your custodian for your entire high school career, little Princess. But you've been so wrapped up in your pathetic little lives, filled with _gossip_ and _fashion_ and _that cute boy in your math class_ that you can't even take a moment to remove the blindfold from your eyes. Little ungrateful brats."

He walked up to Monique and she looked away, looking at the ground. He sneered.

"I know you think I'm untouchable because I've been cleaning up your shit for the past ten years. And that may be true… but I also have a knack for being in the right place at the right time… so I pick up things. I _know_ things about you brats that you might not know about each other. I _know_ things that you might not even know about yourselves. And you don't even know my name." He laughed, but it was a creepy, serial-killer laugh and I shivered involuntarily.

"Jeb. Jeb Batchelder. At your… service." He grinned down at James, who shot me a glance, unsure of what to do.

I shrugged, as bewildered as he looked. This Jeb Batchelder was scaring the crap out of me, because he didn't look so much like a janitor as he did Bane from the Batman comics.

Batchelder walked to the door and locked it, and my sense of foreboding increased. He looked at the four of us, and suddenly I wished we had been sitting a tad bit closer together. He grinned evilly. "Well… I've finally received express permission to give you brats exactly what you have coming to you." And he reached into one of those deep pockets of his janitor's suit –big enough to hide a body, I swear –and he pulled out…

Oh, my God.

...

**_CELESTE_**

"What the hell?!" I said, pushing my chair as far away from the madman as possible. I hit another chair and nearly toppled over, but a pair of strong arms reached out and grabbed me before I could hit the ground. But I didn't have time to be embarrassed that Jason had just saved me. There were bigger problems afoot, like the madman that was trying to _whip_ us.

"You brats need to be taught a lesson," he growled, his dark eyes aflame with fervor. "This is the only way to make it last."

He cracked the whip and it make a horrible noise, and abandoning all pretense, I grabbed Jason and dove under a desk, dragging him with me.

His feet got uncomfortably close to us, and I could hear the lunatic's grin in his voice. "You can't hide forever you know…" He raised the whip –I could tell by the shadow on the ground –and I prepared to face the ultimate pain – "Unngggggh!"

A sickening metal whack, followed by a huge thud. I crawled out from under the desk to find that James had pushed the magazine rack over on top of the crazy janitor, knocking him out. His eyes met mine and I gave him a silent thank you.

He nodded. "Run," he said, and I didn't need anyone to tell me twice. I ran, my hand still tightly clenched around Jason's. I didn't care at this point that I was holding onto him like a lifeline –I felt like if I let go of him I'd be unable to keep running. James scooped up Monique and followed us. We ran through the bookshelves, looking wildly for another exit –a secret bookcase -_something._

Behind me, I could hear groaning noises and the sound of a metal magazine rack being shoved off. Oh, man. If he got out of that, he was going to be madder than ever. And we were going to be more screwed than ever.

I found it –a door at the back of the library, and I hoped to God it wasn't locked. Still making sure Jason was right behind me, I forced the door open and ran into the hallway behind it, panting heavily.

"You can run, but you can't hide forever!" the hoarse voice yelled.

If I hadn't been running for my life, I would've rolled my eyes at that stupid movie cliché.

I had lost sight of James –even with my accelerated training, my short legs were no match for his long, toned ones. I locked eyes with Jason. "We're gonna have to hide," I told him.

"But he just said –"

"_Jason_. We can't run. You heard him –he knows every inch of this school. He's going to find us. Our best bet is to hide somewhere he won't dare look. And I know you won't like it, but I know just the place."

His eyes widened. "_Not_ the girls' bathroom…"

…

**_NICK _**

_"Max_," I said urgently, awkwardly kneeling on the ground next to her crumpled figure. I didn't do anything to her –honest. I really thought we had had a connection; that she felt for me the same way I had been feeling for her… but then as soon as the spark ignited she shoved me away with amazing forearm strength and I had hit the lockers behind me. I guess she wasn't lying about the kickboxing. I guess she wasn't lying about _anything_.

I put a hand on her shoulder only to have it jerked away. Max continued to give huge, shuddering sobs, and I decided to just wait. Just wait until she had cried herself out, and then swoop in and be the great Prince Charming that had dropped the panties of all the girls in Arizona.

_You wish_.

I ignored the thought and waited for Max's sobs to subside before asking her quietly. "You okay?"

She shook her head, still sniffling. "No. I am absolutely _not _okay."

I winced, remembering the brief whisper of a kiss. "Was it really that bad?"

Max shoved me away from her, but it was half-hearted this time. "No. This has _nothing _to do with you, okay? I know you just want me as another notch on your bedpost. But I can't let that happen." She tried to sound harsh and unforgiving, but her voice lifted up at the end of her sentence.

_I don't… _

I sat down next to her, my back leaning against the row of lockers. "Why?" was all I asked.

She looked at the ground. "Just go, Nick. GH'll catch us and then it'll all be over."

"Not until you tell me the problem."

"Just _go_, okay? I'm done talking to you."

"Well, _I'm _not done talking to _you_."

"Nick –"

"I'm not leaving –"

"What do you want from me?" she demanded.

I pondered that question for a moment. "I… I want to be a friend. And I know I'm not, like, the kind of guy to say mushy, crappy things like that, but you're not the kind of girl to accept mushy crappy things like that, so I figure we'd be good together."

Max sniffed. "I moved here to be a nobody."

"You _want _to be a nobody?" I asked her, grinning incredulously.

She fingered the frayed laces of her blue Converse. "Better that way. No drama, no mess, no… emotions…"

"You know, you're different," I blurted. "Everyone else here, they _live_ for the drama. They just _wait_ for the next exciting thing to happen so they can put it on their Instagram feed and see how many likes they can get." I watched her retie the laces on her shoes, fascinated at the dexterity of her fingers as they created an extremely complicated knot. "But I'm with you –I don't see the point."

Max nodded. "It's stupid. And… I _like _being here. I _like_ having my thoughts to myself." she said softly, pulling on the laces of her shoes, so that the entire knot unraveled.

Just pulling one lace unraveled the whole thing…

"I've only got a year of high school left, and then I'm out of here. That was the plan. To focus on studies, get good grades, get into college, and get out of this hellhole." Max whispered.

"California?"

"_High school_," Max wiped her eyes with a sleeve of her flannel. "They say it's the best four years of your life. A time to relax, party, have loose inhibitions… But they never talk about the consequences of those actions."

I waited for her to continue, with bated breath.

"I haven't told anyone the real reason I moved here," Max said quietly. "I wasn't just leaving behind a broken leg and a pair of soccer cleats."

"What _did_ you leave behind?"

"I can't tell you."

"Well, I'm listening either way. We're detention buds now. It's a relationship thicker than blood. It's like… mayonnaise."

"Mayo is gross."

"Tell me what happened."

"How about caramel? Caramel's good."

"Max. _You can trust me_."

"How do I know that?" she demanded. "So far, all you've done is hit on me, jokingly asked me to have sex with you, and tried –and failed –to kiss me. You're just like every other guy in the universe –small-minded, egoistic, and completely blind."

I sat there, shell-shocked. "But –"

"I want you to leave." Max said, still hunched up, still staring at the ground. I stood up shakily, and she didn't even look up as I walked in the opposite direction.

…

**_MAX_**

I had already cried myself out, so as soon as I was sure Nick was out of the way I stood up myself, wiped my eyes, and stared at my reflection in one of the lockers. I was a sad sight. My blonde hair was tangled up, my eyes were red and puffy, my cheeks were stained with tears, and I looked like the most dejected, lonely person in the universe.

I closed my eyes, unwilling to look at my horrid reflection any longer. I'd make my way back to the library, sit in the back, and not talk to anyone. I'd be the silent shadow, only listening and not speaking. I'd follow through with my master plan. It was a mistake to start talking in the first place. I had given these people the impression that I wanted to be their friend, when in reality, I just wanted them to leave me the hell alone.

So why did it hurt so much to see Nick leave?

He alone was caring, kind, and sure he was a douche at the beginning, but what guy wasn't? My heart ached to push him away, but I had no other choice. I was _not_ going to be that fool to let someone else in again, only to have them rip everything away from me.

I turned around and jumped in the air when I saw that he was leaning against the row of lockers, looking intently at me. How did he reappear like that, almost as if _he_ was a silent shadow?

"Before you say anything, I want to tell you something," he said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and looking deep into my eyes. "I've never told anyone this before."

"Go on," I said, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

"When I was nine, I saw something horrific. I saw something that continues to give me nightmares even today. I got released early from school one day and when I entered the house, it was empty. Or so I thought. But then I heard this… _whimpering_ coming from the adjacent room. I thought it was a dog at first." He spoke in a flat, unemotional tone, but I could sense the underlying feelings lurking just beneath the surface. "I was curious. I entered the room, like any kid would. And… and…" His voice broke off, and he stared at the ground for a moment before continuing. "I saw my mom. Tied to a chair. Covered in bruises. And behind her was my dad. Her husband. He was beating her up. With his fists, with whatever was handy. And she was just… taking it." He looked up, and fixed me with his dark-eyed stare. "I later realized that had been going on for years. And yet my mom never left him. Why didn't she leave him?"

He looked at me as if waiting for me to answer. "I don't…"

"My mother killed herself when I was ten. She couldn't handle the pain anymore. I know that whatever happened to you in the past was probably extremely difficult to experience. I don't need to know what exactly you went through, because it's private and it's yours, and you should be able to share it or not share it. But I want you to know that you're stronger than that. And whatever it is that happened to you… you'll get through it. If you don't want me as a friend, as a shoulder to lean on, as support, that's fine. But you're not alone. You're never alone."

I felt tears spring up to my eyes again. "That's…" _The most thoughtful, kind thing anyone's ever said to me_.

Nick nodded. "Yeah… I'll just go now." He turned to leave.

"Wait," I said, so quietly that I wasn't sure if he heard it. But my heart swelled when he stopped in the hallway. "I… have to tell you something."

"You can tell me anything, Max."

I swallowed. Three words. How hard could they be to get out? Three simple words that had completely changed my life in California and would probably change it again. "In California… I got raped."

* * *

**So, there's that. Don't worry -justice will be served to all that deserve it. **

**This was a particularly hard chapter to write. Specifically the interaction between Max and Nick. ****_How_**** exactly are you supposed to get someone to open up to you enough to tell you that they've been sexually assaulted? I tried my hardest to make it believable, which took a good couple days to get right. But as far as the Fax goes, I can say it'll be really hard for Max to set the past where it belongs and move on with this boy she's known for only half a day. Maybe she'll have to ****_confront the past _****before she can move on... **

**I'm trying to update as fast as I can because I want to post everything before I go on vacation this summer to freaking ****_Europe_****. I'm incredibly excited, because I've wanted to go there ever since I was a little fledgling fresh out of the nest.**


	21. Chapter 21

**_NICK_**

I stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?"

She closed her eyes and turned her face away from me. "Don't make me say it again."

My mind was racing faster than a Formula One car. It didn't make any sense at all. It made absolutely no sense. It made even less sense than differential calculus. It was impossible. Really, really, _really_ impossible.

I didn't know what to do –hug her, tell her everything was going to be fine, even just pat her on the back (stupid, _stupid_). I was frozen. I couldn't move an inch. I was completely frozen.

Max sighed. "Listen, I know you're probably freaking out right now –"

"Freaking out? Who's freaking out? I'm not freaking out?!" I said, my voice coming out an octave higher than normal.

"Nick, I –"

"Who did it?" I demanded, my voice still sounding like Mickey Mouse. "Who did this to you? I'm gonna take their head and rip it clean off of their body, and then I'm gonna smash their skull into a pulp, and then I'm gonna –"

"_Nick_."

I stopped blathering and noticed, too late, that a tear had leaked out of my eye. I wiped it back furiously. "Max, this is so not okay, this is totally not okay…"

She looked at the ground. "I'm sorry for pushing you away, but you can understand why."

And that was when I realized what a major _dick_ I'd been to Max. Flirting shamelessly with her, calling her my girlfriend jokingly… _my God, I had even joked about her having sex with me_. "Max," I said, fighting to keep my voice sounding robustly sane, "I'm really sorry for everything I did, or said, or thought…"

"Nick…" Max said, smiling sadly, "You didn't know, and that's okay, because it's not really the kind of thing I go around telling people when I first meet them."

I was about to open my mouth and insert my foot in it when a loud clang cut me off.

"What the hell –" Max said, looking in the general direction of the library, where the crash had come from.

"We have to go," I said urgently, and she nodded.

I grabbed Max's hand and pulled her through the halls. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I did know one thing –I was never going to let go of her.

…

**_JASON_**

"Would you let go of me?!" I snarled, wrenching my wrist out of Celeste's vice-like grip.

"Shut up! D'you _want _to get caught? That guy has a freaking _whip_, for God's sake!" she hissed right back.

"That doesn't mean I need to be pulled along like a dog on a leash all the time!" I whispered furiously at her, but she wasn't even listening to me. I took a good look around at the girls' bathroom and shuddered. One of the stalls was open, and I didn't want to describe what was inside. There were wads of toilet paper and… feminine products… all over the floor. The countertop with the sinks was stained from what could either be blood or just lipstick… I would never understand girls, would I? "Man, this place is disgusting."

"Are you talking about the school, or the bathroom?" Celeste asked me, a serious expression on her face, and I couldn't help it. The situation was so ridiculous. We were hiding in a girls' bathroom in a high school on a Saturday from a crazy meth-head janitor who was carrying a whip around with the intention of whipping the crap out of us. So I burst into laughter. Celeste looked at me for a few moments, trying to keep a disdainful face, but eventually she also started grinning madly.

"'You kids need to be taught a lesson!'" I said, imitating the janitor's scratchy voice. "'You can't hide forever, you know.'"

Celeste looked at me, impressed. "Man. That impression was spot-on."

"Yeah? I can do GH, too. One sec…" I pulled my cargo pants up to my waist and tucked my shirt in. "I'm a forty-three year old man who doesn't like his job. I hate kids. I _hate_ 'em! We should bake 'em into pies and sell those pies to Russia, that's what I always say…"

Celeste grinned. "You could make a living out of doing impressions, Jason. Those are really good."

I grinned back at her.

"Where'd they go? Down the hall? I swear to hell, Batchelder, if you let these kids get away, you'll have a lot more than just blood on your hands."

Celeste looked at me. "Uh… that's just plain creepy now. You can stop pretending to be GH now."

My eyes widened. "But… that wasn't me."

Celeste's eyes widened and she pulled me behind the bathroom door just as it swung open and the _real_ dragon of the school marched into the bathroom, red in his eyes.

…

**_MONIQUE_**

"This is deff not okay," I said, as we crouched behind one of the dated, patterned couches in the library. "My mom'll totally sue the school."

"That's _if_ we get out alive," James said seriously.

I sighed. "Are you always this optimistic before a big game?"

"Hey, I'm optimistic when I have a reason to be. We're locked in a school with no phones, as per the stupid detention rules, so we can't call the police. There's a maniac after us, and he's armed with a fucking _whip_. _Not_ to mention that he and the vice principal of the school seem to be hand-in-hand in their stupid plan to 'teach us a lesson'."

"This sounds like the plot to an episode of _Pretty Little Liars_," I complained, sitting up. "Someone's gonna end up in the hospital, someone else is going to get arrested, and someone _else_ is going to go to therapy."

"What kinda freak show is that?" James asked me.

I grinned. "Eh… you'll never understand."

"It's been a few minutes since we heard anything from the weirdo janitor. I'm gonna see if the coast is clear," James said. "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

He left, turned a corner, and was soon hidden behind a row of bookcases. I waited with bated breath for any sign of disaster, so I could crawl my way to safety, and just a moment later I heard a loud expletive and I grimaced. "What happened?" I called out in a whisper.

James marched back, looking incredibly angry. "My contacts fell out!"

"Both of them?" I asked.

"Well… one fell out, and I took the other one out because it was inside out, and I dropped that one, so yeah –both of them fell out!"

"So?" I asked. "You can still see, right?"

James groaned. "I'm practically blind without them!"

I grinned. "C'mon, it can't be that bad…"

"Mon, I'm legally blind without my contacts on. I'm not allowed to _drive _without these on. I can't see a single fucking thing." He sighed. "Are you holding up fingers? I _dunno_ how many fingers. It's all just a huge blur."

"This is great," I said. "You're blind and I can't run."

We jumped as we heard the loud creak that could only mean one thing –the door to the library was opening. James looked at me, an expression of complete panic on his face. "And we're effectively cornered."

* * *

**I have a random question -I read somewhere that they were planning on making the MR books into a series of video episodes on Youtube. Does anyone know if that's legit? I know I'd be totally excited if it was true. (even if my main reason is to see if Fang is as hot IRL as he is in my head)**

**This is the last of the 'running' chapters. Crap's gonna hit the fan. And it will splatter _everywhere (_forgive the gross mental imagery_). _**


	22. Chapter 22

**_JAMES_**

Friggin' hell, my heart's going so fast…

I heard two sets of footsteps literally right behind the bookshelf we were hiding behind. I'd never been more afraid in my life –not even when the goal to win the county championship rested on my shoulders. I was even more afraid due to the fact that I couldn't see more than three feet ahead of my face without everything going all blurry… Kind of like the way a car window fogged up after a heavy frost the night before.

And then the feet rounded the corner…

"Guys! What're you doing here?"

I looked up to see a blurry outline of a blonde-haired girl and a blackish outline of a black-haired guy… I squinted. "Max and Nick?"

"Yeah, it's me. What're you doing here? What's going on? Why're you hiding, and where are Celeste and James?"

I groaned slightly and pulled myself up to a sitting position. "I'm gonna make a long story short, because we don't have time. Basically, the weird janitor named Jeb's carrying around a whip and he wants to _literally _whip us back into shape."

I heard Max give a loud exhale. "My _God_. I _KNEW_ it."

"Yeah, so we're just hiding so we don't get killed," Monique piped up.

"Well, we've _got_ to get out of here!" Max said urgently. "I drove here, we can all just pile into my car –"

"And do what?" Monique demanded. "If we leave, we'll get expelled!"

"Well, d'you want to get expelled, or _whipped_?"

Monique huffed. "Fine, but just to a place with a phone. Then we can call Social Services and tell them that there's a maniac on the loose."

"Okay, but we need to find Celeste and Jason, because I'm _not _leaving anyone behind." Max said, wringing her arms. "James, can you –"

"I can't," I said flatly. "I'm blind."

"James, really –"

"I'm legally blind, okay? And both my contacts fell out. I'm not going to be much use to anybody. And Monique's leg is still screwed up."

Max started pacing around furiously. "Well, we _need_ to find them!"

I glanced at Nick, who had been exceptionally quiet the whole time. No snarky, sexist jokes, no smirks, no nothing. In fact –as I squinted at what I could see of his face –he looked like he had seen a ghost. Poor guy. Must be the after-effects of being personally tortured by GH.

Just then, a loud, high-pitched, drawn-out scream filled the air. All four of us turned our heads towards the sound, and Monique said faintly, "I guess we know where they are."

…

**_CELESTE_**

GH was leering at us, a positively evil smile on his face. "Well, well, _well_. What have we here? I can't even _count _how many rules you two must have broken. Talking, leaving the library, and… is that _marijuana _I smell?"

My heart stopped right then and there. We didn't have the weed. I was 213% positive that Nick had given the weed to Max. Right? We were safe. We were safe… until I chanced a glance at Jason, who had a positively terrified expression on his face. And that's when I remembered that before Max had heroically run out of the library to rescue Nick, she had given the weed packet to _Jason_.

Oh. My. God. No.

GH grinned evilly at us. I had seen all the _Saw _movies, and I could honestly say that the smile the vice principal was giving us now was the scariest smile I had ever seen. I _didn't_ want to play this game. I wanted to be at home, in bed, hiding under the pillows.

"Hand it over," he said to me.

I opened my mouth, looked at Jason, and closed it. Okay. He wanted me to play hardball. I could play hardball. "Hand _what _over, exactly?" I asked, extorting my resting bitch face.

GH grinned unpleasantly some more. "The _drugs_, my dear cheerleader. Or, as you kids call them, the _dope_. The _weed_. The _pot_. The bud –actually, forget the last one, that died with the eighties." He glared at me, and I stared back at him. My _eyeballs_ were sweating, but I didn't back down.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I managed, and I was beyond relieved that my voice didn't crack at all. "I don't have any weed. Do you know what that would do to my reputation? I am the co-captain of the cheerleading team! Doing drugs would be like committing suicide –it would ruin my life the same amount."

"Then what about you?" GH asked, turning his clown-like sneer upon Jason, who was physically quaking. "It's kind of embarrassing for you to be caught in the girls' bathroom, isn't it? Why would you be in here… unless you had a dirty secret?"

Jason wrenched his jaw open, and I found myself praying that he wouldn't confess. "I'm on the honor roll. I'm in all AP classes. I'm the President of the Robotics Club, and the chairperson of the Physics Club. I am the _least _likely person in the universe to do drugs. And my father's not going to be very pleased when I tell him that the vice principal's been harassing me on false charges."

I whistled in my head. Damn. The kid even threw in the _my father_ card.

GH rubbed his chin. "All right. Fine. You two should consider yourselves very… lucky. But make one more mistake, and you're out of here. You here? Now get your asses back into the library where you belong! You've only got three hours left of this detention, and I'm beyond sure you haven't written a single word of your _thousand word essay_."

I nodded. "Yes, sir. It won't happen again."

I pushed Jason in front of me and we slowly backed out of the bathroom, leaving Madman #1 in there alone. I couldn't believe we had survived that. I almost burst into laughter… but then the door to the bathroom burst open at the exact same time a packet of weed fell out of Jason's pants.

GH looked at the weed packet, his face purpling. I gulped.

"RUN!" I yelled, shoving Jason in front of me.

…

**_NICK_**

"We've got to get out of here as soon as possible," James said, as the two of us hurried down the suspiciously empty halls. We had split up into two groups to search for the others, and as I was still incapable of normal speech, Max had made the executive decision of pairing me up with James. I was still completely numb, and I couldn't hear a word he was saying to me, so I just nodded along.

James looked at me and frowned. "You okay?"

I nodded.

He nearly bumped into a pillar and swore. "I can't see for shit man, so you're gonna have to speak. Like, actual _words_. I know it's scary, but what the hell happened between you and GH that you can't even make any of your stupid smart-ass comments anymore?"

"Nothing happened between me and GH," I muttered, not technically lying.

"Well then… something's off." James said, turning around to face me. "I'm not gonna lie to you –this morning, when you first walked in here, I thought you were a complete and total douchebag. Well, I actually still do… but maybe you're not as bad as I originally thought you were."

I smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"Yep. Okay, feelings time is over. Where do you think the crapbags went?"

"Celeste and Jason are probably hiding."

"I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about the vice principal and the janitor from hell," James said, a small smile spreading over his face.

"Well, I –"

My sentence was drowned out by a loud rumbling from the hallway next to ours. James frowned in the direction of the sound, so I knew he could hear it too.

"What the –"

Just then, Celeste and Jason burst out of the hallway adjacent to ours and sprinted right into us, nearly knocking me over. Celeste sprang to her feet, spitting hair out of her mouth. I took a look at the wide-eyed, messy-haired, disheveled girl in front of me, and the image contrasted so sharply with the self-righteous, prim and proper girl I had met this morning that something inside me jarred heavily.

"No –time –right –behind –me –" she panted, shoving James and I in the opposite direction we had been walking in, toward the entrance to the school.

"Are you crazy?" James yelled at them. "We can't leave –we'll get expelled!"

"We _have _to leave!" Jason said, his face redder than a ripe tomato. "He –has –a gun!"

At that statement I tripped over my feet and nearly face-planted the linoleum floor. "_What_?!"

Celeste continued shoving us outside. "Where are the others?" she demanded, breathing heavily, once we had reached the relative safety of the parking lot.

"I'm right here," came a voice, and we all jumped about a foot in the air. I turned around to see Monique standing there, looking extremely white-faced, and holding her leg tightly.

James ran over to her and buried his face in her hair. "Thank _god_… I was _so_ worried about you…" I could see his hands shaking as he threw them around her.

"Where's Max?" Celeste demanded, before I could form the words.

Monique wiped a tear from her eye. "She… she was inside, and we were cornered, and then GH pulled out a _gun_, and she told me that she'd hold him off and she told me to run. I told her I wasn't leaving her behind, but she _pushed_ me…" Her voice broke off and James hugged her even more tightly.

"I've got to find her," I said.

"Are you crazy?!" Celeste asked me shrilly, still clutching a stitch in her side. "One of them has a whip, the other has a _gun, _and they're both clinically insane! You can't go back in there!"

"Max wasn't going to leave you behind. That's why she's still in there. She's in there looking for you and Jason even as we speak," I said, rolling up the sleeves of my leather jacket. "So I'm sure as hell not leaving _her_ behind."

I tore off towards the school steps before anyone could stop me.

* * *

**So I've posted a lot of stories on this site... and I haven't finished any as yet :/**

**So now that I'm officially on summer vacation, I'll have renewed time to spend on working on the other MR stories that I've posted but kept on hiatus. So be on the lookout for anything with the word _ZipUnZipIt_ next to it, because that's how you'll know it came from my weird brain channels.**

**Also, since I _am_ on summer break... does anyone have any good book recommendations? I will read anything, as long as it's fiction, and it doesn't involve vampires as one of the main characters (I'm not hating on Twilight... it was actually a pretty good book, but I just don't like vampires for some reason). The last book I read was _A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and I'm seriously wondering if anything can top that.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Thank you all so much for the amazing book recommendations! Now I'm scared that I'll have too ****_much_**** to read :D. **

**Enjoy this chapter -personally, it's one of my favorite ones. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Rambo franchise (although I wish I did). This will make sense in approximately ten minutes.**

* * *

**_MAX_**

I sincerely hoped this wasn't going to be my last memory. Backing into a corner, heart pumping faster than a rabbit on steroids, with the dank smell of gym socks and other gross unmentionables surrounding me in the poorly-lit locker room.

To be concise, it was the _boys' _locker room. My last few minutes were going to be spent amongst sweaty, abandoned gym shorts and sneakers so malodorous I wouldn't even wish them on my worst enemy. Actually, that wasn't true. I'd wish them on GH.

Who, incidentally, was trying to kill me.

Little side note, there. Sorry if I forgot that detail first.

I had been running with Monique earlier, but she was already impeded with her twisted ankle, so when GH had cornered us I had sent her running. I could tell she had way more to lose than I did. I mean, she had friends, a mother who cared about her (probably), and I saw the way James looked at her. I was the worst person to even talk to about love or romance or anything like that, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that those two had some _deep_ connection.

You could call me a hero. Donate a little column to me in the paper. Maybe get me a chocolate statue or something. I wouldn't mind that at all… because I didn't intend on dying.

Come on. I didn't take kickboxing lessons for three years straight, five days a week, just to die at the hands of some heroin-crazed middle-aged man with a Glock in his hands. I was gonna fight my way out of here.

I tripped over something damp (and probably foul) and swore. I didn't want to see what was in here. Boys were _gross_ –something I was learning very quickly. Thank God I wasn't in here right after one of James's varsity soccer games. If that were the case, I think I'd rather die than be subjected to any more of the sweaty nightmare.

"I know you're in here," GH called out, his voice cutting through the dank air like… uh, insert clever-yet-witty metaphor here.

_I know you still live with your mom and you wear Batman underwear_, I wanted to say. But I didn't because even though I was a master at the art of street fighting, bullets could still move faster than fists, and I wasn't intending to get shot. The element of surprise was all I had.

"I don't care about your damn future. Did you believe for a moment that I did? How _naïve_. How… _stupid_."

I didn't know if he was drunk or high or something… and I didn't really want to find out.

I continued tiptoeing through the locker room, trying to figure out a battle plan. Could I use guerilla warfare against him? An attractive option… until you realized that my only weapons were athletic supporters and dirty underwear. Which I wasn't going to touch even if the barrel of the gun was pointing directly at my forehead. I had standards.

So I kept backing up, trying to make as little noise as possible, until my back hit a wall. I ran my hands all over the concrete, my pulse quickening slightly. I had reached the end of the locker room, and the pseudo-principal was still advancing towards me. I was trapped. Crap, not the way I wanted to go at all.

"You can run, but you can't hide!" GH cackled. I heard the _click_ of the safety of the gun being taken off. Hey, I had watched all three _Rambo _movies. I knew my way around guns. But crap-fried-on-a-stick, that meant he was free to shoot now.

The door was only a few feet away. I tugged it –but it was locked. Duh. When had life ever been easy for me? If I survived this, which was getting increasingly unlikely, I was giving up on school forever. Forget it. I'd homeschool myself, swap my Jetta for a Harley, and meet some drifter on the road to spend the rest of my life with. And they'd make a movie about us called _Gone With The Wind_… haha.

His footsteps were getting closer. Okay, time to stop the snarky inner monologue. Time for your life to flash before your eyes… Hmm. That took a surprisingly short amount of time.

GH was right before me. His yellowish teeth glinted in the semi-darkness –I guess _someone _wasn't using Sensodyne twice a day, like nine out of ten dentists recommended. "You're trapped. Anything left to say before the world is relieved of your baleful prescence?"

"Let me tell you something, Gunther-Hagen. I could have killed 'em all, I could've killed you. In town you're the law, out here it's me. Don't push it! Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it go!"

GH's face looked confused momentarily, before he raised his hand and pointed the gun at me. His finger was about to pull the trigger when multiple things happened at once.

One, the fire alarm went off.

Two, the sprinklers wired to the ceiling went off.

Three, the florescent lights in the locker room went all the way on, blinding me momentarily.

Four, I took advantage of his momentary confusion and punched him in the mouth as hard as I could. "That's for detention, Muggle!"

Don't give me flak for hitting a teacher. The only thing he ever taught me was how to run from impending doom. In any case, I was pretty sure I was going to live to make snarky comments another day.

I opened the locker room door –it had been automatically unlocked by the fire alarm –and ran out into the hallways.

…

**_NICK_**

I ran out from the janitor's closet, heart thumping. Pulling the fire alarm had been one thing, but then I had also gone to town turning on the school's emergency lights and activating the sprinkler system. The art projects the freshman had made in Mrs. Dwyer's class were going to get ruined, but it was a small price to pay for possibly saving Max's life.

I ran through the hallways, skidding slightly on the wet linoleum floors. I hadn't heard a gunshot anywhere, and I had yet to find Max. I cursed myself continually for letting her out of my sight.

The lights were blaring, and I was pretty sure the fire department was going to show up soon, along with the police. We had to get out of here soon.

"MAX!" I yelled in desperation, after I had run in circles around the main floor for the second time. "MAX!"

My heart leapt into my throat when I heard something. "Nick!" A faint yell, barely audible over the sprinklers and the sirens, but a yell nonetheless. She was still alive. She was still kicking. I had renowned purpose.

"MAX!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Where are you?!" I couldn't tell if the water on my face was from tears or the sprinklers.

"Nick!" I heard again, louder this time. It seemed to be coming from the end of the hallway… and then I noticed it –a small, dark blob in the faint distance. Oh, sugar honey iced tea. Oh, _shit_.

I ran as fast as I could, slipping and sliding on the wet ground. "Max!" I called out, half-sobbing.

She ran towards me even faster, if that was possible. "Oh my God, Nick!"

I threw out my arms to wrap them around her when her lips slammed into mine with mind-shattering speed. As she collided with me, my legs gave way to the slick flooring and I stumbled, nearly spilling onto the floor. Her arms were wrapped around me so tightly I couldn't breathe, but none of that mattered. I had Max. I was holding Max. I was kissing Max.

Finally, when it felt like my brain was going to explode from lack of oxygen, I reluctantly pulled away from her, breathing hard.

Her blue eyes had tears in them. "You… you came back," she whispered.

"Of course." I said gruffly.

"You're the only one who ever did." Max said quietly, and without a word, I pulled her towards me, to feel those soft lips on mine once again. We had barely touched when a gunshot erupted from the end of the hallway.

And a bullet hit me half a second later.

Max screamed. I stared at the dark red hole in my shoulder for a moment, slowly registering what had happened. "Ow," I muttered, getting dizzy. My legs nearly gave way but Max steadied me as we turned to face GH, standing at the end of the hallway.

"Why are you doing this?" Max said forcefully, but her voice lilted up at the end. "We're just kids! We're not the ones holding guns and whips and trying to kill each other! What do you have against teenagers?"

GH had a mad, mad smile on his face, and I was half-hoping he'd shoot me right then and there and I'd be done with this pain –but before he could pull the trigger, the end of the hallway exploded.

Max threw herself down on the ground and shielded me as best as she could as little metal bits of locker and plaster from the walls and pencils and pens and all other school-related crap flew everywhere.

"Damn, who knew ammonium nitrate could be so explosive?"

"I did, that's what I was telling you –"

"Did we get him?"

"Yeah, we did. We got him."

…

**_MONIQUE_**

I blinked the smoke out of my eyes impatiently to see Max and Nick lying on the ground, arms wrapped tightly around each other. It was adorable, and it brought tears to my eyes –no, that was the smoke. Stupid smoke. Why was there so _much_ of it?

It had been James' idea to blow up the school. More specifically, to blow up Gunka-Hunka. It had been Jason's idea to use the ammonium nitrate lying around in the chemistry classrooms, and it had been Celeste who picked the lock to the supply closet like an expert. And as for me… I was the one who had thrown the bomb straight at the target –and man, did I do my job well.

I ran as fast as I could with my bum leg towards Max and Nick, while the others followed. I gave my hand to Max and pulled her up. She stood up, coughing slightly and staring at me. "_You _blew up the school?!"

"What, did you think we were going to stand around and watch you get shot?" I asked her, smiling slightly. "We're friends now. You save me, I save you. That's how payback works."

Max sobbed and threw her arms around me. I staggered backwards a bit, wincing because of my stupid leg, but I hugged her back, tightly.

The others reached us, but our happy reunion was cut short by a low moan coming from the ground. I looked down and clapped my hands to my mouth –Nick was lying on the ground, his face pale, blood oozing from a hole in his shoulder that could have only come from a bullet. "Oh, my God. GH got him."

Max helped Nick up, and he moaned slightly. "Damn… that hurts," he muttered. "Max?"

"I'm here, babe," Max whispered. "I'm here."

I smiled at the two of them, but right at that moment the lump of charred flesh that was GH started stirring and groaning. And I could hear police sirens in the distance.

"I hate to ruin this happy reunion, but he needs a doctor. And we have to get out of here, otherwise we'll get arrested." Celeste said. Always the curt one.

"We'll take my car," I said, leading the way towards the door. Max helped James heft a half-unconscious Nick into his arms and followed me. Good thing I sprang for the Mercedes with the extra-large backseat.

"Where are we going?" Jason asked me, as I hopped into the driver's seat and turned on the ignition. James got into the passenger seat, and the rest of them piled into the backseat, Max keeping her arms wrapped tightly around Nick.

I zoomed out of the parking lot just as the fire trucks and police cars started whirring in. "Hmm… good question. Where can six juvenile delinquents go on a Saturday evening, looking all charred and burned and disgusting?"

* * *

**Where do you think they'll go? I'll really enjoy holding the mystery over all your heads until the next update :)**


	24. Chapter 24

**_JASON_**

Okay, don't yell at me.

We were six teenagers, all in various states of unkemptness (ranging from Celeste, who was mostly unscathed except for her wild, tousled hair to James, who had received the majority of the backlash of the bomb blast on his clothes), underage, with one in pretty bad condition. Nick's shoulder was nowhere near Grey's Anatomy bad, but it still merited a wince every time I looked at it. Luckily the poor guy was still passed out (or close to it), and Max totally had it under control. Not that I was worried about Nick, or anything. If there was anyone in this car that could take a bullet to the shoulder and not give a shit, it was him.

So. Anyways. Back to the not-yelling bit. So, Monique was asking where we should go, and I made a list of options. None of our parents' houses. From what I'd heard, we all had pretty screwed –up home lives to start with, and I knew what my parents would do if I showed up on my doorstep after blowing up a hallway in my school. They'd turn me into the police without blinking an eye, and I was sure the others' parents would do similar things. We couldn't go to the hospital, because the police were surely looking for us. We couldn't go back to school, because none of us had a death wish. So, I suggested the only place that made sense to me.

"Warlock Alfie's Game Store and Magical Roleplay Kingdom?" James asked incredulously, peering out of the car window at the videogame store that I practically lived on during the weekends… until middle school, thank you very much.

I purpled. "Alf's a good friend."

Monique shifted the car into park and shut off the engine, sighing. "Ordinarily, I'd argue with you until your ears rotted, but _he_ needs some serious medical attention," She gestured to Nick, who groaned slightly as Max shifted her grip on him. "Your man Alfie better have some Tylenol in there, at the least."

I nodded, eagerly leading the way into the store. Finally, _I _was the leader for once.

Alfie looked up from the register when I entered and his old, bearded face broke into a smile. "Aah, Warlock Jason! I was wondering where you were this morning, for our usual match with the Red Dragon!"

Okay, so maybe I _did _come in here. Occasionally. Just to catch up. I was a level 107 Warlock, after all, and you can't just throw a legacy like that away. Alfie's face grew bemused, however, as the others piled into the shop, and he literally took a step backwards when he saw Nick's bloody shoulder. "Been in a real-life brawl?" he asked me, concernedly.

I brushed my hair out of my eyes. "Alfie, we need help. And maybe an aspirin or ten," I added, wincing at Nick's injury.

…

Alfie had been in the videogame and role playing business for almost forty years. He had seen many a weird incident in his time –among those being the cross-dressing Power Rangers, the man with the Harley Quinn fetish, and the severely misinformed burglar who had tried to use the Imperius Curse on him and instead found himself getting shipped off to the finest mental hospital in the county. But never had he seen anything as strange as this –six ragged, disheveled teens, with one having a bullet hole in his shoulder. He looked at his longtime customer Jason for some sanity. "Jason… what happened?"

"Uh, we might have blown up a part of our school –"

"– and the police are after us –"

"– the vice principal had a _gun_ –"

"– and a _whip_ –"

"– we were just in detention, it was so crazy –"

"Unnngggggh," Alfie turned his attention away from the madness and focused on the injured boy. He directed the girl holding him to deposit the boy in a chair nearby, and began rummaging around in his desk drawers for some aspirin. He sorely wished he had been more prepared for this… although _how _he could have prepared for this, he had no idea.

"I'm sorry, I only have this," He held up a box of Star Wars Band-Aids.

The blonde-haired girl holding the boy up took the Band-Aids and stared at them critically. "He'll get blood poisoning if we don't sterilize the wound."

Alfie nodded. "I've got a bottle of vodka in the back. For my more… mature patrons."

"That should do it," the girl said, nodding.

Alfie returned with the bottle and handed it to the girl, and directed his attention to the four kids standing right in front of him. There was Jason… and then there were three others that looked the sort of type to throw eggs at his store rather than enter it. "So, what happened?"

"Jason, can we trust him? Can we trust you?" the other blonde-haired girl asked. Alfie squinted at her. She was wearing a dirty cheerleading outfit, and he intuitively knew it wasn't cosplay.

"Depends. What's this about a gun and a whip and you lot blowing up your school?" Alfie asked, crossing his arms. Jason had been a faithful customer for the past seven years, but he wasn't going to get involved in the wrong side of the law too easily.

Jason took a deep breath. "We were put in detention together. For the entire Saturday. And we were supposed to stay in the library and not move, not talk, and not do anything for the next eight hours. We had to write an essay about who we thought we were. But… we started talking anyways. You can't just lock up some kids in a room with no direct supervision and expect them to follow the rules. There were fights, and we got off to a pretty rough start. Which made sense, considering we're so different from each other. Different social circles. Different school lives. If this detention hadn't happened, we'd have never even bothered to talk to one another."

"So we kept talking. And the vice principal –the man supervising the detention –got mad. And the madder he got, the more fun we had trying to push the limits and trying to infuriate him," The cheerleader was talking now, picking up where Jason had left off. "We even left the library –and we narrowly escaped getting caught. In the process, we learned more about each other than we'd have ever dreamed. Or bothered to find out."

"But apparently we had pushed the drag –er, the vice principal too much. Because next thing we knew, he had grabbed Nick and was shoving him in a broom closet. And the rest of us were still trapped in the library, while the janitor slinked in. And he was carrying a _whip_. So naturally, we had to run. We ran but there were some complications. Namely, the weirdo vice principal and his henchman had other ideas than letting us escape. Our vice principal had a _gun_." It was the tall boy speaking, the one with the red hair who was blinking madly.

"That's when he got shot. And that's when we decided we had to run, so we blew up a hallway of the school to escape, and Jason told us this was a good, safe place to hide out." The dark-haired, chocolate-skinned girl finished her statement, voice shaking slightly. "Also, d'you have another chair or something, because my leg's killing me."

The red-haired boy helped her to a chair next to where the girl was still trying to open the vodka bottle. Alfie stared at all of them incredulously. Yep, this was _definitely_ the weirdest thing he had ever seen. "This sounds like a crack plot some deranged writer would come up with," he said, still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing. "But I believe you."

"You do?" Jason said, looking at Alfie hopefully.

"I prefer to be on first-name terms –or _any_ name terms –with the people I help. So… who are you?"

"This is Celeste, Monique, James, Nick, and Max." Jason said quickly, pointing at each of the others in succession. "So you'll help us?"

"Well, I can hide you guys from the police in the back room. Don't think they'll think to check their in a million years. But you can't hide here forever. What are you planning to do next?" Alfie asked them, scratching his long beard.

The confused silence was broken by a large, strangled yell from the corner. Everyone turned to see the black-haired boy writhing in agony as pure, Russian vodka was dabbed onto his injury. Alfie could practically hear the sizzle of the tortured flesh, and he shuddered. A police siren wailed outside.

"I think you all should get in the back room now," he said, and they nodded.

…

**_MAX_**

"Nick," I said, trying to hold him still. "I'm trying to help you."

His teeth were gritted and his eyes shone with tears he was trying hard to hold back. "_You're –killing –me_."

He was writhing around so much that I couldn't hold him anymore. "James!" I yelled. "Help me hold Nick down!"

I heard a loud thud as James walked into a stack of books. "Fucking hell, I can't see shit!"

"I'm here," I groaned. I was wrestling Nick to the ground, my knee pressed up against his chest just so I could hold him still, but I was still having difficulty dabbing his wound clean. "Just get your ass over here and worry about your vision later!"

A few seconds later, I saw James's silhouette slink into the back room. "Max… there's a time and a place for unleashing your desires," he said, seeing me on top of Nick.

"I'll kill you once this nightmare's over," I grunted. "Hold his arms down for me, will you?"

James nodded, but even as he tried, Nick's arms flailed around uncontrollably. With him in such a state, fixing his wound was going to be impossible. What he really needed was a painkiller. Or even better –sedation.

Wait a minute.

"Jason!" I yelled. "Still got that weed?"

He ran into the back room. "It's still in my underpants."

I cringed. "I did _not _need to hear that. Give it to me."

"Why –you want to blaze it up now?"

Why were boys so annoying? "No! I'm going to use it as a painkiller for Nick, so he'll quit being a little baby about a little sting!" I snarled.

Jason handed me the packet. "You think it'll work?"

"That was the plan all along, wasn't it? To get high? Maybe we thought it would happen in different circumstances, but you have to take what you can get," I said.

Jason sat down next to me as the other girls entered. He looked at Nick and then at me questioningly. "Why do you care about him so much?" he asked me casually.

I froze momentarily. "What?"

"I mean, you guys just met this morning, right? Same as the rest of us?"

I handed the lit weed to Nick. "I guess."

"So… what made you go after him when GH had him?"

Nick coughed and shuddered as the marijuana entered his system. I snuffed the flame out and set the packet on the ground. "I… don't know." I looked up to find four pairs of eyes on me.

"Oh, come on," Monique said. "I could tell you felt something the moment he looked at you that first time."

I was spared answering by Alfie knocking on the door to the back room. "Hey, you guys all right back there?"

"Fine!" Jason called back.

"Okay. There are lots of cops hanging around outside so I'm going to lock this door as a safety precaution. Don't worry about being locked in –there's a key hanging on the wall next to the door, okay? Nick doing okay?"

"Thanks, Alfie, and yeah, he is!" Jason said. The door swung shut and it was just the six of us again, in a locked room, with no idea what was going to happen next. Déjà vu much?

Nick's breathing eased as the marijuana hit his brain, and I finally was able to clean his wound and stick a liberal amount of Star Wars Band-Aids onto his wound with minimal resistance. Well, it'd need patching up, but I had done the best I could do. I sat back, suddenly exhausted.

"Max," Nick muttered softly and I jumped. "Your hair… it's so soft…"

He reached out and his fingers got tangled in my rat's nest. If my hair was soft, I was Scarlett Johansson. But then again, he was high. Maybe I _was _Scarlett Johansson to him right now. I took his free hand in mine.

"So?" Monique asked me, and I sighed.

"Okay. I would have done it for any of you. No one deserves to be treated badly. No one innocent. And I knew he was kind of a douche at the beginning, but he's really hot." I grinned. "And don't forget –he was the one who stood up and dared to test the waters. _He _was the one who forced us to work together to get out of there. And _he_ was the only one who still talked to me after I told him… what I told him." I finished lamely, not wanting to go into any of that now. I was met with four speechless faces.

"Max," Nick whispered, and I turned to look at him. He had an easy, dreamy smile on his face "You're… soooo beautiful, y'know?"

I smiled. "Aww."

"It's just so cute…" Monique said, grinning. I noticed that her and James' hands were intertwined.

"No way," I said incredulously. "You two?"

Celeste grinned haughtily. "I sniffed it from a mile away. Two exes with no idea why they split –of course they were bound to get back together."

"Love is in the air," Nick proclaimed.

"I want what he's having," Celeste said, looking at the weed. "I mean, if I was high, I wouldn't be about to crap myself with worry about getting arrested –or worse, getting expelled."

"At least you have your priorities straight," Jason said, grinning.

"And it would really dull the pain in my ankle…" Monique mused.

"Guys… this is stupid. We can't blaze it up while we're hiding from the cops! We're becoming just as irresponsible as the Kardashians! And I am so mad at you that I referenced that." James said half-heartedly, elbowing his girlfriend.

I grinned. "But we're unruly, wild teenagers who need to be taught a lesson. This is what we do."


	25. Chapter 25

**Sorry to keep you guys waiting! I had dodgy internet the whole of last week and then I went camping and had to go cold turkey (no internet) for three days, which was a whole battle on its own. But I'm back.**

* * *

"And which way did the kids go?" Officer Payne asked Dr. Gunther-Hagen, noting down all the details of the unusual hallway explosion. The vice principal had vehemently insisted that the six children who had been in detention at the time in question had somehow been responsible for such extensive damage –flooding the hallways and blowing up the entire corridor.

Officer Payne knelt down and inhaled deeply. Ammonium nitrate. He smiled. Those kids were smarter than the usual bunches of vandals, if this was indeed their doing.

"They must've run out of the front door and made a break for it," Dr. Gunther-Hagen said, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Didn't want to get caught and jailed, probably."

Payne stood up and brushed the dust off of his hands. "You realize that I'll have to hold you and Mr. Batchelder in our custody until we can find those kids."

The vice principal blinked. "What?"

The officer shrugged. "Just a safety precaution."

For a moment it looked like Dr. Gunther-Hagen was resisting the impulse to yell something violent, but then he shrugged. "We'd better find those poor kids immediately, then. You know. For their _safety_."

…

Jason blew smoke out of his nose and giggled like a five-year-old girl, tickled at the sight. "Lookie here at me… I'm magical!"

Celeste snorted heavily. "You're not _magical_, dumbass…" Her once-immaculately combed hair was now hanging around her shoulders in a messy, ratty bunch. She caught sight of herself in a mirror hanging on the wall and smirked. "Man, I look like I just hitchhiked across the ghetto."

"You couldn't last a _day_ in the ghetto," Nick remarked from where he was lounging, his head in Max's lap. "You couldn't last five _minutes _in the ghetto."

"I look like someone decided to take a shit on my head," Celeste said airily. "If only my mother could see me now…"

"Your shoulder okay?" Max asked Nick quietly.

"It feels like someone poured hot lead onto my arm," Nick muttered. "But don't worry about me –I can handle a little pain."

"We're going to get you to a hospital. At some point," Max promised.

"You usually look so perfect," Jason said, trying his best to uncross his eyes. "Like… like… a Barbie or something. Why d'you always have to look so perfect?"

Celeste yawned loudly. "Why do _you_ always have to ask dumb questions?"

"Why do _you_ always have to be so rude?"

"Why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too…" Monique sang offkey from the corner, where she and James were so intertwined on the same armchair that it was impossible to tell whose legs were whose.

"This isn't Oprah," Celeste snapped at Jason. "We're in a really bad situation, and we're h –h –high. Also, this room is _so _gross. Does your grandpa ever clean the dust off of his junk?"

"I like you when you talk dirty –I mean, about dirty things," Jason mumbled, his head resting in the crook of his arm. "I think I gotta throw up."

"Can't hold your weed, can you, Magic?" Max crooned.

Celeste shoved her hair out of her eyes. "I have an autistic sister."

Nick, Max, and Jason stared at her. Even Monique pulled herself away from James for a moment to regard Celeste with renewed interest.

"What?" Jason asked quietly, twiddling his ears as though he hadn't heard properly."

"You asked me why I always had to be so perfect." Celeste said defiantly.

"Younger or older?" Nick asked after a long pause. As if it mattered.

"Older. She's been that way since before I was born. And sometimes I think my mom uses me as… like, a tool. Like, a way to channel my sister's being into me. She wants me to be extra-perfect and extra-popular and extra-smart and the whole shebang to make up for the fact that my sister just _can't_. And I want to be perfect. I really do. But…" Celeste expelled another cloud of smoke from her mouth. "Y'know, it's hard to be completely perfect. You can't be perfect and be happy. I haven't been happy since the moment I was born."

"Tough," Jason said, bobbing his head up and down.

"Shut up, Magic," Celeste said, throwing her shoe at him. "I'm sure you're completely normal."

"LOL," Jason said, smirking. "Right. Normal. Normal…" He looked at the others, the others who had somehow become his closest confidants within the span of the past few hours. "You know how you say a word over and over until it doesn't even sound like a word anymore; it just sounds like some mad cow disease or something?"

Max hiccupped and everyone else nodded in assent.

"Well… that's how every day of my life feels like. It's always like, 'Get A's, Jason,', or 'Get scholarships, Jason,', or 'Study day and night, Jason,'. It sucks. I've been doing the same thing for so much of my life that it doesn't even feel like I'm _living _anymore."

"Do you like… I mean, are you…" Celeste trailed off, staring awkwardly at her hands.

"Suicidal? I don't think so... I mean, I get where they're coming from. My dad's a mailman and my mom works at Kroger. They just want the best for me, and they don't want me to end up like them… but I can see how happy they are with each other and their lives while I'm so _miserable_ and I just can't help thinking… is it _such_ a bad thing to end up like that?"

"Not if you're happy," James intoned from the corner.

"Since when did this become a crap version of Oprah?" Celeste demanded.

"Since we all got locked in a room together." James said, grinning.

"Gus, _shhhh_!" Nick said dramatically, putting a finger to his lips and sitting up. "I hear police sirens outside. Man… we're fucked." And he began to giggle hysterically, something no one had ever seen Nick Walker do before. Something that he would have killed people for seeing if he had been normal and not high in the sky on enough weed to knock out a horse.

They all fell silent, and sure enough, by craning their ears, they could just barely hear the sound of the front door to Alfie's Warlock and Magic Emporium… or something like that, anyway.

"It's the fuzz!" said Jason to no one in particular.

"What if they hear us breathing?" Monique asked worriedly. "They'll find us! We should hold our breath!"

"We can't hold our breath for that long, you dumbass," Celeste snapped.

"Speak for yourself," Monique huffed. "_I _used to be on the swim team until freshman year. Fastest two-hundred meter butterfly in the Little Sharks League."

"So _that's _how you got such a hot body, babe…" James muttered.

"You know who _else_ has a hot body?" Nick mumbled, setting his head back in Max's lap. "Erm… whose lap is this?"

"Mine," Max whispered loudly, concealing a wide smile. "I think."

"'Kay, good."

"So, who else has a hot body?"

"Helen Mirren?"

Max giggled and stroked Nick's hair. "So you're into older ladies?"

"Maybe… when's your birthday?"

"I'll be seventeen in June."

Nick grinned. "You're four months older than me. So I _am _into older ladies."

"You know, if we kissed right now, it'd only be our second kiss _ever_." Max whispered as Nick sat up and stared into her eyes.

"Your eyes are fucking gorgeous," Nick whispered, and he pressed his lips to hers for the second time. And the third time. And about ten more times… until Celeste literally walked over and pulled them apart.

"Guys… this is not the time to be consummating your five-hour-old relationship," Celeste began, but she was cut off by a shrill giggle. She looked up to see James leading Monique into the back closet, both of them giggling madly. "No, _seriously_… stop having sex!" she shouted to the closed closet door.

"We're not… we're just making out, honest…" Monique's voice filtered through the closed door.

Celeste gave up and flopped down onto the ground. She smirked when she noticed Jason eyeing her. "I don't _mean _to be the designated driver… I guess it's just my nature. Guess you'll have to put up with it."

"I was thinking," Jason began.

"What, that we're gonna get arrested and go to juvie. I was thinking the same thing. Hopefully they'll have chocolate there."

In the dark of the room, Celeste could faintly make out Jason's cheeks, which were tinged red. "No… I was thinking about what happened in the girls' locker room."

Celeste threw her other shoe at him. "Perv."

"I'd never dump you," Jason began.

Celeste eyed him. "You high?"

"Yeah, but –"

"Then this doesn't mean shit. But since I'm high too, I'll let you continue." Celeste said.

"Right, so I might not be some sort of hunky football jock that everyone either wants to date or be. I don't spend my Saturday nights going out to parties and getting drunk –I spend them either studying Advanced Calculus or else playing League of Legends with my online friends. We're from two different worlds –but there's no denying that there's _something _between us. I know you've had a horrible relationship in the past, but I'd never dump you. I'd never leave you. I'd never cheat on you –and you don't ever have to worry about that, because who else could I ever find that was even close to your league?" Jason asked, grinning.

Celeste smiled. "Get to the point, Doctor Who."

Jason went extremely red. "Uh… everyone else is… so do you wanna?"

"Do I wanna what?"

"I dunno… make out, I guess?"

Celeste sighed. "And you were off to _such _a good start…" She fiddled with her fingers. "I'm sorry, Jason, but I can't."

He nodded, shoulders slumped. "Okay. I get it, I mean, you don't want to be involved romantically with someone like me, and that's okay –"

"No, that's not why I can't," Celeste interrupted. "It has nothing to do with you. You're incredibly sweet, and cute, and you have a surprising set of washboard abs –"

"From playing table tennis."

"I didn't need to know that. But the point is, I can't be with you because I'm just not _into _you. But it's not just you. I'm not into… well, I'm not into guys… in general…"

Jason frowned. "Huh?"

"In a way, I was relieved that Ari cheated on me. Because…" Celeste turned red herself. "I'm hella _gay_."*****

Jason's mouth fell all the way to the floor. "You like _girls_? That's like, every man's porn fantasy come to life! I mean… that's a shame. No, wait, that's not what I mean, but you _know_ what I mean –"

"I do. Yeah." Celeste said.

The two of them lapsed into awkward silence, punctuated occasionally by the odd thump against the closet door. Nick and Max were resting, her head on his shoulder and his arms around hers. It was adorable, even if the other couple in the room was being totally disgusting.

Everything that could have been said was said. So, in a way, it came as a relief to the six of them when the inevitable knock came on the back room door.

"Open up, it's the police. Put your hands up and step outside. We don't want any trouble."

* * *

***I didn't really want to put Jason and Celeste together, since they're supposed to be siblings in canon, and I'm not really down with incest. So that's my way of avoiding that whole puddle of cringe-worthy substance. **

**The end is in sight... I only have thirty chapters and maybe an epilogue that I'm toying with. Not sure about that just yet. So, since we're in the homestretch, if anyone has any weird questions to ask me, whether it's about the story or not, fire away! I'll do my best to answer them without giving too much away. **

**Also, check out my new MR story, ****_You Again_****. It's super short and I'm already done writing it, so there won't be any long waits for updates. I really have no life. Especially because it's summer vacation. Aaah... **


	26. Chapter 26

Gunther-Hagen watched with a satisfied smirk on his face as the six kids were brought into the police station. He was standing behind one-way glass. Unlike the kids, he wasn't handcuffed, but there was a guard standing attention in the observation room, ready to spring if he should try anything.

But there was nothing left to try. No one would believe these kids when they said that he had had a gun and that the janitor had had a whip. Who would believe a bunch of ragtag, abrasive kids? His dream would be fulfilled, and he would never have to see head nor tail of those disgusting teenagers ever again. They'd get sent off to military school, or juvenile jail, and their lives would be ruined. And it was all thanks to him, the vice principal who had made it impossible for these children to survive detention.

…

**_MAX_**

"What's your name?" the officer in front of me asked.

"Max." I retorted. I was coming off of my weed high now, and thank _God_ for that otherwise I'd get arrested on account of use and possession of marijuana since I was a minor. But the bad part of that was that my head ached like it had just been smashed against a wall, and my mouth was so parched that every word I spoke felt like my tongue was going to crumble into a pile of dust.

"Max _what_? Full name," the officer said shortly. She was tiny, only about four feet tall, but she exuded power and authority. Her nametag read Chief Waters. Great. They gave _me_ the Head Honcho, which meant she could probably throw me in the sewer if I upset her.

"Maxine Wilhelmina Evanovich-Martinez-Ride." I said clearly.

She frowned at me. "You think this is funny, kid?"

"Absolutely not." It was _hilarious_, mainly because I was so scared that I was going to get arrested. It was taking all I had not to break out into giggles. I had inappropriate reactions to stressful situations, okay?

"No one has _three _last names."

"Well, I do. One's my father's last name, one's my mother's maiden name that I adopted after my horrible father left us, and one's mine that I picked for myself."

Chief Waters squinted at me. "You picked your own last name?"

I shrugged. "That's not illegal, is it?"

"No, I s'pose it's not," the chief said after a pause.

…

**_JASON_**

"I'm only going to ask you this once. Did you or did you not blow up the east wing hallway of Newton High School?"

I fidgeted slightly, not because I was feeling guilty or anything –what we did was totally justified, I was just worried that the cops weren't going to see it that way –but because the chair I was sitting in was literally the most uncomfortable chair I had ever had the misfortune to come across. And I had sat on rickety lab stools in Physics before. Besides, Celeste had drilled us all on what we were going to do if the cops asked us something we didn't feel comfortable answering. "No." I said clearly, wincing at the lie.

The short, fat, balding officer squinted at me. "No, what?"

"Erm… no… sir?"

He sighed. "No, I mean, what do you mean by _no_?"

I blinked, confused. "What?"

He ran a finger through his thinning hair and winced as a few more strands came off. "I asked you a question."

"And I gave you an answer," I said, fighting the mad impulse to throw up. "I said no."

"Yeah, but no, _what_?"

"I don't get you, sir."

He opened his mouth again, and then shut it. "All right. I give up. Bring the next kid. This one's clearly on some kinda shit."

I stood up to leave, concealing a grin on my face. Plausible deniability, bitches!

…

**_NICK_**

The weed had worn off… and so I was feeling the full pain of my bullet wound. The lady police officer in front of me looked at me wound nervously. "You okay?"

I grunted. "I'll live."

"No… you sure you don't want some ice on that, or something?"

I raised my eyebrows. "You want to know who did this to me?"

She looked uncomfortable. "If this is something to do with gangs, you're in the wrong spot, you should really go down to the Assault –"

"It was _him_," I said fiercely, pointing to the mirror which GH was standing behind. "_He _shot me. While we were trying to get away from his right-hand-man, who had a whip. You want to arrest someone, arrest _them_."

She laughed nervously. "I'm sorry, Mr. Walker, could you please lean back a little bit? Also, where's the proof of the weapons?"

"Well, of course they're not going to be carrying the weapons around with them!" I said, exasperated.

"Mr. Walker, I understand if you want to protect the members of your gang. I know you might have taken a blood oath, but you can't pin your gang-related violence on an innocent high school vice principal –"

"I'm not part of any fucking gang! Is it the leather jacket that makes you think that? Then why doesn't everyone think Matthew McConaughey's part of a gang? And the man hiding like a coward behind that glass is the _least_ innocent man on the planet, I can tell you –"

"Calm down, Mr. Walker," the officer said nervously. "If there's no evidence, we can't convict anyone. Innocent until proven guilty."

I stared at her, furious. Because that sure wasn't the case in _my_ sorry life.

…

**_CELESTE_**

"Name?"

"Celeste Marie Wilkins."

The officer raised his eyebrow. "Wilkins… from _the _Wilkins family?"

"Depends," I said. "Are you going to call my parents?"

"I don't know. Do I have a reason to?" he asked me. "Do you admit to blowing up the school hallway with your friends?"

I snorted. "You're not getting a confession out of me that easily. I won't give in unless you have concrete proof that I did something wrong."

He crossed his arms. "What are you planning to do in the meantime?"

I shrugged. "Sit here, stare at you, maybe intimidate you a little… You're getting uncomfortable already, I can tell."

"You know there's nothing stopping me from calling your parents, right?"

"They won't come," I said, shrugging. "They're already too busy managing two high-profile careers and an autistic child to boot. They don't really give a crap about me, and I don't think they'll give a crap about this unless it directly correlates to their images or something."

"So is that why you did this? For attention?"

"Listen, you little –" I stopped myself just in time from swearing in front of an officer, although I gave him my best glare. "Weren't you listening earlier? I did this to _survive_ _detention_."

"And why did you get put in detention in the first place?"

My eyes flashed. "We're done here."

He winced as I stood up and made for the door. "Answer my question, Celeste."

"_Don't _call me Celeste," I snapped. "Only my friends can call me Celeste. And… I only have five friends –and you're not one of them."

…

**_JAMES_**

I drummed my fingers on the chipped interrogation table, exhaling. The chair in front of me was empty, and rolled my eyes when I noticed that it was past five o'clock on the analog clock on the wall. Detention was over, so why was I still in here?

Why was I still in a hellhole? Different hellhole, but still.

"You know, I can't believe this is happening," I said out loud. "I deserve better than this –we all do. Why do you all think teenagers are horrible kids? You haven't even listened to our side of the story. Seriously –I wouldn't blow up a part of my school for no reason."

"If you had told me this before today, I might have believed you,"

I sat up straighter automatically, looking around for the disembodied voice before I found the source –a little loudspeaker in the wall. "Yeah? Why –are you PMSing today?"

"You were a good kid, James. A star soccer player, on track to get plenty of scholarships… and then you had to go and ruin it all."

The voice was horribly familiar. I frowned at the speaker in the wall. "You can't tell me I ruined it. I didn't ruin anything. I only did what I had to do to _live_. The man had a fucking _gun_, and you don't even have him in cuffs."

"You shouldn't be worrying about your vice principal. You should be worrying about yourself."

I scowled. "Why?"

"Because…" A tall shadow stood at the entrance to the interrogation room, and my eyes widened when I recognized the same red-blonde hair, although his was streaked with gray.

"Oh my God," I whispered. This was _definitely_ a hellhole.

"… I am your father," he finished, sitting down in front of me. I took a deep breath and forced myself to look my dad in the eyes.

I wonder if he knew that he had just repeated the same iconic lines from Star Wars. Because I knew exactly how Luke Skywalker must have felt at that moment –blindsided as _hell_.

…

**_MONIQUE_**

"I ran the plates in the car parked outside, Monique. And the car is registered to you."

I grinned to myself. I freaking _drove_ the getaway car. My life was getting so cool in the past day alone, and I was also probably going to get arrested. Win some, lose some. I plastered a regretful expression onto my face. "I know it's mine. Are you going to impound the car? Because I don't know how I'll get to school on Monday if you do. I _can't_ take the bus, okay? Only the freshmen and the social rejects take the bus. Do I look like either of those to you? Of course I don't. I better not look like a damn social reject, not after all that money I spent on this outfit, and this makeup, and my _car_, which you guys have unfairly taken from me. I know my rights. I'm not stupid. You can't keep that car without probable cause, and accusing six kids of blowing up a hallway isn't good enough. So unless you get concrete evidence, you can't keep me or my car here."

The officer sitting across from me looked simply dumbfounded. I leaned back in my seat, satisfied. When I started talking, I could _talk_. I could talk circles around anyone else that dared to challenge me. It was why people didn't want me in their class for Socratic seminars, or for debates. I was just such a talkative person… and I had finally come into my own.

"Monique… we _do _have evidence," the officer finally said, holding out a plastic bag. I leaned forward, smirking, sure that it was going to be something stupid like a sock or something that was so generic that it could belong to anyone, and I'd deny that it was mine.

Except, what she was holding out wasn't a sock. It wasn't anything generic. It wasn't even anything specific, like a credit card or a drivers' license. And jeez, I was wishing to high heaven that it was a credit card.

She was holding a used condom.

How could I be so _fucking stupid_?

* * *

**I'm sorry for the late update! I'm currently working on three other stories besides this one, so I kind of forgot about it. Anyways, things are happening, which is exciting! And more things are going to happen, too. Lots of things. I'm nervous for the ending, to be honest, because it's really risky... but enough about the near future -what did you guys think?**

**And this late update thing will never happen again because there are only a handful of chapters left, and I have no excuses not to update! **


	27. Chapter 27

**_MAX_**

I exhaled in relief as I saw Nick hobbling out of the interrogation room looking like he had just killed a man. "Thank God, I thought they had arrested you," I said, standing up and pulling him to the cold metal bench that had been my home for the last half an hour.

He grunted. "They don't have anything on us. And even if they did, we were only acting in self-defense. Don't worry –they can't do anything to us."

"I know that, I just can't help but freak out," I muttered. "Why do you look angry enough to kill someone, anyways?"

Nick pulled his feet up onto the bench and hugged his knees. In the florescent lighting, I could clearly see the bags under his eyes. He looked more innocent and vulnerable than I could have ever imagined. "Why do you like me?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"The officer in there? She thought my gunshot wound was from a fucking _gang_ fight. Wouldn't even listen to me when I told her that it was the fucking vice principal. Do I _really_ look that cruel and stupid to everyone? And if so, why do you like me?"

I looked at my hands, as if I'd find an answer there. "Uh…"

"Why do you care so much about me when we've only known each other for a day?"

"Nick –"

"You don't know anything about me. You don't know what my favorite color is, what my favorite food is, where I live, what I did yesterday… you don't know anything. And yet, we're here."

Someone was getting talkative. "Listen, Nick –"

"I mean, what is this? What are we? Are we just going to go back to ignoring each other once all this is over?"

"_Listen_ to me! I don't _need_ to know stupid, superficial things about you to like you, okay? I don't care what your favorite color is or your favorite food is. Who _cares_ about the freaking Olive Theory when I know the most important things about you? I know that your eyes are dark brown, nearly black, flecked with little gold dots. I know that you want to become something more when you grow up, like a doctor or a lawyer. I know that under your hard exterior you're kind and compassionate. And I learned all this in a _day_. One _day_. I've never learned that much about a person in a day, not even when I was doing my history report on Catherine the Great."

Nick raised his head to meet mine and I stared, almost angrily, into those dark whirlpools of eyes. "Is this something real?"

I scoffed. "Nick, you've flirted with me, gotten locked in a broom closet with me, run through a blown-up hallway with me, gotten high with me, and gotten arrested with me. This is as real as it gets."

A flicker of a smile passed across his face. "Good."

"Yeah?"

"Good to know it's not just the leather jacket and the practiced scowl." he said, grinning at me.

I rolled my eyes. "That's _part_ of it, obviously…"

"Because I fucking _hate_ stereotypes."

…

**_JAMES_**

"Dad, what're you doing here?" I stammered, squinting at the blurry outline of my father as he came into the interrogation room and sat down in front of me.

He sighed. "Do our remember what I told you this morning when I was dropping you off for detention, James? _Tomfoolery is not tolerated in our household_. So imagine my surprise when the chief called me and told me that _my_ son and a few of his fellow detention students vandalized their school, terrorized their vice principal, and played hooky on their detention."

I inhaled sharply. "That's not the full story!"

"Then what _is_?"

I glared at my dad, in his stupid police officer uniform which gave him the authority to make my life hell if he wanted to… but since he was my dad, he didn't _need_ any stupid badge or uniform to give him authority to make my life hell. "It's Gunther-Hagen. The vice principal that we "terrorized"? He and his weirdo sidekick janitor have an agenda to take revenge on teenagers and how ungrateful they are for how easy they have it, or some shi –some crap."

I couldn't see whether my dad was listening to me or not, but I plowed on. "And the janitor came after us first. He had a _whip_, and he was chasing us around the library, and we split up and we thought we were in the clear until GH cornered Max with a _gun_… and then we had to escape because we thought we were gonna die."

My dad cleared his throat. "That sounds like a load of horsecrap."

"No more than a bunch of teenagers blowing up a school." I retorted.

My father sighed. "James Manfred Griffiths. Your mother and I raised you to be extraordinary. And until this morning… more or less, you were. I don't know what's gotten into you. You realize the penalty for lying to an officer, don't you?"

"I'm not lying!" I said furiously. "I did nothing wrong –_we_ did nothing wrong!"

Except for doing illegal drugs. But he didn't need to know that –omission wasn't the same as lying, right? Plausible deniability.

My dad raised his eyebrows to speak again but the door to the interrogation room opened once again and I squinted at the blurry outline standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" My dad barked at the outline. "If you're done giving your confession, go wait in the main room with the others. This is a private matter."

"Please, sir, I just need to speak with James –"

I stood up when I heard the familiar voice. "Monique?"

"James, we need to talk."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait for a few more minutes," my father said smoothly, and she shook her head.

"It can't, it really can't." Her voice shook slightly, and I wondered what was wrong. Did she let something slip? She wouldn't have, she was stronger than that. Right?

"Dad –erm, Officer Griffiths, can I –"

"Five minutes," my dad barked.

I stumbled out of the interrogation room to find Monique slumped against the wall, with telltale signs of mascara streaked down her cheeks. Clearly she had been crying. "What's wrong?" I asked her quietly.

She shook her head, and another tear rolled down her face, leaving another blurry streak of blackness. "We were so _stupid_, James…"

"You're not still high, are you?"

"Of course not, it's not _that._"

"Then what is it? Because everyone else has been interrogated, right? They don't have anything on us. We're all testifying that GH is the bad guy. They'll release us and do a full on investigation on him. The important thing to remember is that they have nothing on us."

She shook her head again. "They –they have something on us. More specifically, me and you."

I blinked. "What?"

Monique shuddered. "The closet in Warlock Alfie's store… they found… they found a condom. And it's yours."

"No," was all that escaped my lips.

"That's not all, James…" Monique was whispering, but I couldn't hear her. I was too busy imaging the hell that would break loose when my father found out that not only was I under the influence of an illegal drug today, but I also had underage sex in a broom closet of a videogame store with my ex-girlfriend that he disapproved of. I was going to have to change my name and move to Mexico.

"No," I said again, and my already blurry vision went even blurrier, if that was possible. And at this point, I was quickly learning that anything was.

"James, that's not all," Monique said, and I pulled myself back to the present.

"Spit," I said numbly.

"I… went to the bathroom… and I got this," she muttered, pushing a small stick into my hands.

I stared at the stick, not understanding. "Huh?"

Monique's eyes were brimming with tears. "There's a really good reason we were both virgins. There's a blue line in the middle of that stick."

No fucking way.

"You're pregnant," I whispered.

And then I fainted.

* * *

**There are only two chapters left plus an epilogue, so this story's winding down (although it might not seem like it). **

**If you all need something to fill the void, check out my other in-progress stories! My personal favorite (if it's okay to have a favorite that you wrote) is Bang Bang Boom, but I love all of my brain-childs (brain-children?) equally. So if you like weird humor, Fang when he's a badass, Fang when he's awkward, Fang in general, and FAX, check out those stories, because I'll be updating them freely once this is over. **

**Personal promotion done! Until next chapter, then :)**


	28. Chapter 28: Part 1

**_UPDATE:_ My laptop just rebooted itself randomly and I lost the next part of this (and the other two chapters for this story). I know I promised a Sunday evening update, but it's Sunday night and I'm really annoyed and tired right now and I don't have the energy to rewrite it right now. It was the _only _document that got deleted. I really want to finish this story, but I lost everything except for what's currently on the website. **

* * *

**_JASON_**

We'd been waiting here _forever_. And that wasn't an exaggeration –it had literally been more than three hours since the officers had all marched us into this waiting room and handcuffed us to chairs.

Yeah, that's right. We were _handcuffed to chairs_, like we were criminals.

Just then, the door opened, and an officer came in. He wasn't smiling as he stood in the middle of the room and said, "Nicholas Alexander Walker, Maxine Wilhelmina Evanovich-Martinez-Ride, Celeste Marie Wilkins, Jason Alexander Crane, James Manfred Griffiths, and Monique Anastasia Vandervaal. You are under arrest for arson, destruction of federal property, battery, and escape."

I stared at him. "There must be some mistake."

He sniffed. "No mistake. You do the crime, you do the time."

"Yes, but we _didn't_ do a crime. You have to believe us –we only did it because Dr. Gumbo-Humbo had a gun and he was threatening us –"

"–And he _shot_ Nick right here, see –"

"–Don't we have rights? Don't we get lawyers? This is totally inhumane –"

"–_He shot Nick right there, see –_"

This couldn't be happening. I was getting arrested, and I didn't even do anything wrong in my life except fake a math test by faking the wrong answers when I knew one of the jocks was trying to copy me. And I _still_ got an A on it.

My mother was going to _kill_ me.

…

**_CELESTE_**

"This is America. I have rights. I have freedom. I didn't do anything wrong, and I don't deserve to be here!" I said out loud for about the millionth time, but no one was listening to me. Duh. These people… they weren't actors, they were reactors, if you know what I meant.

I stood up –or at least, with my hand handcuffed to a leg of the spindly metal chair, the farthest I could go was some sort of awkward legs-bent position. Not really the assertion of dominance I was expecting, but I had to make do. "Guys –okay, so we blew up a hallway. But we did it in self-defense! This is not the end! This is only the beginning! We have to fight! We have to fight for what is ours!"

James shook his head. "No. It's over. It's so completely over."

Monique nodded. "I'm so sorry…" She looked like she was about to burst into tears, and she looked like she had already cranked out a few bucketfuls in private.

"It's not your fault –if it's anyone's fault, it's mine. It was my idea. It was my doing. And I'm sorry."

"Uh, I knew it was your idea, but it was Jason's idea to use the ammonium nitrate, and I'm the one who picked the lock, and Monique threw the bomb, and we only did it because Dr. Gumbo-Humbo was trying to blow a hole through the side of Max and Nick's heads. So it's all of our faults."

James shook his head. "Nope. My fault."

I stared at them, confused. "Uh…"

"Drop it," Jason advised me, and I sat back down.

"What –are we just going to stay here until we rot?"

"They don't believe us," James said hoarsely. " My own _dad_ didn't believe me. He looked at me and went, 'You're a good boy, filled with potential. Too bad you can't attempt to reach it.'"

"_My_ person thought I was wounded in a gang fight. She didn't even bother to check the wound or believe my story." Nick said angrily from the corner.

"Mine just looked at me and assumed that my dad was going to bail me out," Monique said angrily.

"I thought stereotypes ended with high school," I said quietly. "But it looks like they exist everywhere. Even where it matters the most. You're right, we should just give up."

"I can't believe they're letting GH walk free. After all he did," Max muttered.

"You know, he did do one good thing," I said. "At the risk of sounding gushy and stupid, he might've locked up us in a room and expected us to kill each other, but instead, he made us become friends, thrown together by circumstance. I mean, we never would've bonded if we weren't all being chased by a gun-wielding, whip-throwing, seriously deranged faculty."

There was a pause.

"You know, I think you're right about that, Angel," Nick said, a crooked grin on his face.

I flipped him off good-naturedly. "Don't call me _angel_. I'm a devil in disguise."

"I'm a tennis player in disguise."

I looked at Nick, grinning. "No way. You are _not _a tennis player."

He grinned. "I know I have more of a soccer body, but it's true."

Ah, his old personality was finally back. "You know, I missed wanting to smack you in the face every five seconds. It's a good feeling."

"How do you think _I_ feel?" Max asked. "I decided to make out with him, the freak."

And they promptly kissed again.

"If we're going to tell each other our deepest darkest secrets after eight hours, this is going to turn into a sitcom rather than real life." Jason muttered.

I sighed. "Yeah, well… sitcoms have happy endings. This one ends with six teenagers getting thrown in the clink. And when we get out, our parents are going to kill us. Being murdered with the pointy end of my mom's Louboutins doesn't really fit the definition of a happy ending, no matter how loose the definition is."

…

**_MAX_**

"But why _shouldn't_ it have a happy ending?" I asked them. "I mean, did you guys give up?"

"We're in _jail_, Maxie," Nick whispered next to me. "It's over. We're done."

I glared at him. "I left California in such a bad shape. I'm not leaving here in a similar situation. _I'm _not done."

"But it's our word against GH's. They're not believing anything we say," Monqiue said.

"Then we'll find evidence. We'll make them believe us. If we stay in here, GH gets to go back to Newton. He gets to keep on torturing the next batch of Saturday detention students. We can't let that happen."

Nick snorted. "So what –you saying we're gonna bust out?"

"Exactly. We're gonna bust out."

James shook his head. "No. No way. I am _not_ doing anything else illegal in my life, ever."

"Neither am I," Monique piped up. "Not after everything that already happened."

"We got put in jail!" I said, irritated. "You don't have to come –I'll do it myself. You can stay here, in your own sweet little bubble of popularity and perfection that you don't seem to want to burst."

"It's not that, you moron!" Monique said, standing up. "I'm _pregnant_ with James' baby after we screwed around in the closet back in Alfie's place! It's no one's fault but ours, but forgive me for not wanting to screw my life up any more than it already is!"

"You think _your_ life is screwed up?" I asked them furiously. "You know why I moved here in the first place? You wanna know _why_ I abandoned a glorious career in soccer to come to this shithead school with a fucking _mental case_ for a faculty? _I am a victim of rape_. I got _raped_. So while you got to lose your virginity with your trophy boyfriend, I got to lose it while _crying _in front of someone I thought was my friend! I lost _everything, _and you already have everything you could ever want! So you want to play the pity game? Shut the fuck up!"

I stopped, breathing heavily, to see the others looking at me, shell-shocked.

"I'm so sorry, Max –" James began, but I cut him off.

"I have a plan. I'm getting out of here and going back to the school to find something that'll incarcerate GH for the rest of his life. You can't get away with assaulting children and expect everything to be happily ever after."

"How do you plan on getting out, though?" Celeste asked, and I was beyond glad that we had moved ahead of the touchy topic.

"Something a friend of mine cooked up," I said, reaching into my shoe. "Handy tip –if you want to sneak something in, put it in your shoe. No one ever checks there, for some reason."

I pulled out the tiny bottle and Jason's eyes widened. "Ammonium nitrate."


	29. Chapter 28: Part 2

**_MAX_**

If we weren't felons before, we were most certainly felons now.

"We don't have a car!" Monique screamed as we ran out into the parking lot. "The police officer that interrogated me impounded it!"

I looked wildly behind me at the sirens blaring throughout the police station. Every second was precious –we were only a few minutes ahead of the cops and every second we delayed, we had a better chance of being shipped off to max security.

I didn't want to think about that, not after I was the one that riled everyone else up with my passionate speech about making things right. But the fact was, I hadn't thought this through. And neither had anyone else.

"Nick –what the hell are you doing?!" Monique screamed once again, and I whirled around to see Nick casually smashing the window of a nearby police cruiser with a rock.

"Getting us a ride," he said calmly, wincing as he lifted the arm with the injured shoulder once more to pound all the jagged pieces of the rock out. "They leave the keys in the car because they think no one'll be stupid enough to steal a police car. Guess they thought wrong."

"You're crazy! You'll get us into even more trouble than we're in now!" Monique yelled, but I shook my head.

"We're already in the most trouble we'll ever be," I said, hopping into the passenger seat. "Good job, hun."

Nick waggled his eyebrows at me and stepped on the gas. Within seconds we were flying out of the police station and towards Newton High, where I hoped to God we'd find some incriminating evidence to put GH and Jeb Batchelder behind bars.

…

**_NICK_**

"Jesus, man, your driving is worse than being caught in a fucking tornado," James whispered to me as we navigated the torched-up walls of the school. I felt a tiny bit bad looking at all the destruction we had caused –allegedly –but then again, school was school, and shit was shit.

"I got us here in under five minutes," I whispered back, wincing as my I stepped on something and heard a loud _crunch_. I lifted my foot to find an old granola bar. Weird, the things you find after blowing up your school –allegedly.

"Guys, according to my calculations, we have about ten minutes until the cops figure out where we're going and arrive here to take us to hell." Jason said from the corner.

"Then maybe you should help us instead of calculating," Celeste snipped from the corner.

"What kind of evidence are we looking for, anyway?" James muttered to me, and I shrugged.

"Maybe the gun. The whip. Something that'll put those sadistic assholes behind bars for the rest of their fucking lives."

I heard a loud retching noise from somewhere ahead. "_Oh my God_, the boys' locker room completely imploded!" Max yells. "And it smells just like Jason!"

"Hey –I don't fart like that all the time!" Jason protested, and I grinned.

I reached Max in time to find that she was right –the locker room had completely exploded, with only small boxes of metal and ripped pieces of cloth serving as the remnants of what had once been the feeding ground for Newport's biggest bullies.

"It must've exploded from all the pent-up gas," Max said, holding her nose. "_I'm _not going in there. _I _have standards. You have fun, baby."

I winced. "Why should _I_ go in? I didn't even do P.E. most of the time –I just cut class."

"Excuse me? You're a _dude_. This is the _dude's_ locker room. This is your turf. You go in." Max says. "And hold your nose the entire time, please. I think I read somewhere that too much inhalation of bodily fumes can give you early onset Alzheimer's."

"You are evil," I said, but then I went inside anyway.

…

**_CELESTE_**

"You okay?" I asked Monique, who was looking rather pale through her many layers of fake tanning. Or maybe it was a real tan, since everything was becoming so upside down. She was sifting half-heartedly through a pile of ash, not caring about her nails or anything, and I sat down next to her.

She blinked. "All my life, people have thought I was a thot. Screwing every guy that comes along. I'd never had sex with anyone until today, and on my _very first _time, I get pregnant. It's so unfair. I get slut-shamed without even being a slut, and then I realize I actually _am_ a whore." She buried her face in her ash-covered hands.

"You're not a whore," I said quietly. "And that baby –if you're gonna keep it –it's going to have the best role model of a mother to look up to. I mean, look at you. You always look on point. You always know what to say. You have an attitude that I wish I could have. And you're going to make it through this, because you're one of the strongest people I know."

I put my own ash-covered hands around her and squeezed her tightly, and Monique smiled through her tears. "You just got ash all over my five hundred dollar DKNY skirt."

I blinked. "Well… _you_ just got ash all over my million-dollar body."

She smiled. "Fine. Call it even."

"Fine." I said, grinning. "Now let's plunge our manicured hands into this dirt and find us some damning evidence."

…

**_NICK_**

The fumes were literally _visible_ –it was that strong. My eyes teared up as I navigated the wasteland of athletic supporters and jock straps… this was beyond disgusting, but I was doing it for the good of the people.

"Guys, we have three minutes," Jason yelled in the distance, and my pulse quickened. All we had so far was a smooshed granola bar. If we didn't find something, we were going down.

In desperation I decided to shelve my pride and my inhibitions –however low they were in the first place –and dig through the debris on the floor. Wincing, I pushed the layers of boxers and sweat-stained t-shirts aside to find something –anything that would incriminate the guy that had tried to make our detention hell and then tried to kill us.

I kept shoveling until I hit something small and hard. I reached into the pile with a certain amount of bravery and pulled out a key.

Standing up, I examined the key more closely. It didn't look like the kind used to unlock lockers –it was small, goldish in color, and had the letters GB engraved on it.

I stood up and ran out of the locker room –there was only so much piss smell one could take.

Outside I found everyone in a state of panic. "What's going on? How much time do we have?" I asked Jason, whose eyes were wider than dinner plates.

"Uh –" His voice was cut off by the sound of police sirens in the distance.

"Guess that answers that question," I muttered.

"Did you find anything?" James asked me urgently, and I held up the key.

"This."

"What the hell does that open?" James said. "That's it. It could be used to open any millions of things. We're screwed. We have no real evidence. We're completely and totally screwed. This was a horrible idea. It's like we just locked ourselves in a closet –"

"Wait." I stared at James, riveted. "Say that again."

"We just locked ourselves in a closet?"

I felt a grin spread over my face. "Of course. Of _course_. Except we're not the ones locking ourselves in the closet –GH is!"

"What're you going on about?" James asked, frowning.

I turned to Max. "The closet. Remember the closet GH locked me in?"

"Vividly."

I suddenly grabbed her by her collar and kissed her full on the mouth. "All's not lost, guys. I know _exactly_ what this key opens. And it's good. Hell, it's beyond good. This'll get him thrown in jail until his mother decides to reclaim him as her child."

* * *

**I'm heading off to Europe in three hours so this'll be it chapter for the next two weeks. I have to physically restrain myself from posting the rest of the story in one go. You guys can wait... **

**hahahahahahahaha I am a horrible person. **

**Anyways, I have a question because I'm curious and please everyone who reads this, please reply so I have something to read on the plane besides Sky Mall magazine. What's your OTP, and why does that couple make you happier than other fictional couples? **

**Mine is James/Lily from Harry Potter, because I love how James has to fight for Lily's love, and I love how their relationship is so love-hate. Also, because JK Rowling didn't include them too much in canon, you get to make up all the lovely banter between them, which is something I love doing in my head. **

**Don't worry -Fax is pretty high up on the list. Definitely top five. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't :)**

**Only two chapters left guys! Don't give up on me just yet! **


	30. Chapter 29

**_NICK_**

"Get outta my way!" I yelled to Monique and Celeste, who ducked as I leaped over them. I had never been good at track, nor had I ever done track in my life, but I had a feeling that I just broke Usain Bolt's record with how fast I sprinted just then.

"Nick, I love you man, but you're being crazy!" James' voice, then footsteps thundered through the hall as he arrived, panting slightly, to see me standing in front of the closet door with the key in my hand. "You…"

I glanced at James. "Do you trust me?"

He made a face. "Man, don't ask me questions you won't like the answer to."

I nodded. "Fair enough."

As I was about to put the key in the lock the others caught up. "What're you doing?" Max asked me.

I looked at her. "I have no idea."

She nodded. "Fair enough. Carry on. Side note –we have about two minutes left before the police get here, according to Jason."

"Okay."

"I'm loving how we're all so calm –just like the peace before a storm." Celeste said.

"It's either that or crying," I said. "And I don't care how much we've been through –I am _not_ crying in front of a bunch of people I've only known for eight hours."

And once again, I turned around to put the keys in the lock –until the door shook violently and I jumped backward, directly onto James' foot.

"What the actual fuck?" James whispered, staring at the door.

There was someone in there.

And before any of us could do anything, even scream, the door swung open to reveal a very tall, thin, black-haired man. And I finally realized who had been missing from the police station.

"Well, well, well…" the janitor growled, sneering at us. "Look who crawled out from their cages."

…

**_MONIQUE_**

"You won't try anything," I said confidently, even though my knees were shaking. "The police are two minutes away and they'll catch you if you try to hurt us."

Jeb Batchelder grinned. "Two minutes? I only need one."

From behind the janitor I could see Nick mouthing at me. _Talk_.

Talk?

I could talk.

I would talk like I've never talked before in my life.

"What kind of sick, twisted pleasure do you get out of killing children?" I asked Jeb conversationally. "I mean, there's got to be some sort of psychological answer to this… thing you've been waving in our faces. This isn't like you, Jeb. This isn't like you at all."

I could see James mouthing the words _what the hell_ at me, but I had done my job. Nick had slipped into the closet. But we were still in danger.

"I mean, what kind of detention is this?" I asked, my voice starting to quaver.

Jeb grinned. "That's the brilliant part. You see, this isn't detention. It's an experiment."

…

**_MAX_**

"You all weren't put here by chance. You all were put here by _me_. Smoking weed underneath the bleachers? Students do it all the time. Cheating on math tests? That just means an email sent to your parents, which usually ends up in spam. And –" his eyes flitted over me – "avoiding and lying to counselors who _just want to help_… that's your business. You think you're all here for detention? Well, you're wrong. You're all here… because you're all prime subjects."

This was by far the weirdest day I had ever been in. "It doesn't matter now," I said. "You're going to get arrested, and –"

"So are you," Jeb said, grinning maliciously. "It's all part of the plan."

I scoffed. "Why would _we_ get arrested? You're the one pointing a gun at innocent, underage children. You're the one who threatened us countless times. _You're _the one who looks like Severus Snape!"

"But he was actually a good guy –"

"There's a time and place, Jason!" I snapped, my nerves stretched to breaking point.

But Jeb just smiled even wider, revealing two rows of what looked like way more teeth than the average person had.

"You –you and Gunther Hagen –"

"Gunther Hagen is a fool. He'd gone soft. He chased you all out of here on _purpose_. He went to the police station, trying to convince them that you were innocent, trying to blame _me_." Jeb chuckled. "Imagine how he felt when he realized you'd escaped the safety of the cell and come right back here, trying to find evidence to incriminate him. Needless to say, I took care of him."

Mad man. He was a mad man.

"And, now that I've got the data that I need for my _experiment_… I'm going to take care of you as well. Starting with your _very good friend_ Nick. you think I don't know your friend Nick is in there?" he asked, smiling widely, pointing to the closet.

My heart went cold. "Don't do anything," I whispered. "Please."

"How strange is it that you managed to care so much about him in the span of eight hours? You went from being _strangers _to _courtesans_ in less than a day. He said all the right things, and you lapped it up like a dog. Because all you really want, Maximum Ride, although you try to hide it, disprove it, and discount it, is to be loved."

My throat was burning, and my eyes were prickling. "Don't do anything," I said again, forcing my voice to come out without wobbling too much. "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I've already won."

And just as the last words fell from his mouth, the entire closet door burst into flames of such intensity that it caused me to stagger backwards and fall. I looked up at the red-hot flames licking the frame of the door, eyes burning, throat scorched, and only one word on my lips.

_Nick_.

* * *

**I know I said two weeks, and it's been a month. I'm sorry -college apps, the boatload of extracurriculars I've been doing lately for the aforementioned apps, tennis, IB classes, and life in general have all been kicking my butt. **

**Thanks so much for putting up with me! I noticed I didn't lose any favorite or followers in the past month, so thanks once more for sticking with me!**

**BTW -I have a new name -theWeekendSquared. Long story short: I was at Bumbershoot on Saturday, and I saw The Weeknd on a weekend... I'm a total nerd, I know. **

**Until next time (not sure when that'll be)! **


	31. Chapter 30

**Wow. It's been a while. 57 days, to be exact. I know most of you must hate me, and I don't blame you. 57 days is a lot of time to wait. Especially when most of the chapters in this story have barely cleared 1000 words. You guys deserve more than that.**

**So, without further ado, here is the penultimate chapter of Surviving Detention.**

* * *

_**NICK**_

Was it getting hot in here, or was it just me?

The temperature in the closet had inexplicably risen about twenty five degrees, and sweat dripped off of my nose as I searched the shelves desperately. I took a deep breath to get some more oxygen to my bloodstream, and the bitter smell of gasoline assaulted my sinuses. What the hell?

I walked over to the closet door and tried to open it, but it was locked. What? Desperately, I jimmied the doorknob as the smell of gasoline became stronger. I had a pretty good idea of what was happening -Gunther-Hagen must have known I was going to come in here, and he must have rigged the room. I banged on the door desperately. "HEY!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "Get me out of here!"

There was a moment of dead silence on the other side. Then I heard the lock click.

A few seconds later, everything exploded.

I felt myself being hurled through the air like a football soaring into the end zone for a touchdown pass. My back slammed into the back wall, into a shelf full of bleach and window grout, knocking the wind out of me. I grabbed a shelf for support as I shakily stood up. I put a hand to the back of my head, which was aching terribly, to feel a huge bump the size of a large grapefruit. But even scarier was the column of flames not four feet in front of me, steadily creeping in my direction. As I backed up slowly, my foot caught on something on the ground and I looked down to see a small drain.

Why would there be a drain in a custodial closet?

Frowning, I knelt down, wincing, and pulled the drain cover out to see a small hole. It was big enough for maybe a large rat to fit through, but definitely not me. Even though I _did_ work out sometimes (mostly by running away from my sorry excuse of a dad). But it was big enough for my arm to fit through... I reached into the drain and pulled out a small keyring, similar to the one already in my pocket.

And oh, my God.

...

_**MAX**_

Through my blurred vision from the ground I saw the janitor running away at the speed of sound. The _coward_.

Then another fireball landed about three inches from my face and I remembered why I was so damn scared in the first place.

"NICK!" I screamed, scrambling up to my feet and rushing towards the flaming closet door. I was only a few feet from the fire when a pair of arms wrapped around me and pulled me back. James was heaving me towards the school's exit, away from the fire, away from Nick. I wriggled my arm free from his grasp to punch him in the face and he loosened his grip on me, enabling me to get free.

"Max, _no_!" he growled, clutching his nose where I had landed my blow. "It's a trap -he just wants to kill you!"

"I don't care!" I yelled back. "I can't leave Nick there -he'll die! I pushed James away from me so hard that he staggered backwards. "Are you going to put your life ahead of his?"

James's face contorted. "I... well... I barely know the guy! It doesn't make any sense to just -"

"So your life is more valuable than someone else's?" I spat at James. "Just because you barely know him?"

"Well, look at us!" James yelled back. "Just a few hours ago, he tried to stab me! We're just a hodgepodge of random kids! We're don't usually talk to each other! We barely know each other! I didn't even know any of you existed before this morning, and suddenly we're just supposed to be inseparable, best friends? It doesn't work like that!" He finished, breathing heavily, and then Monique spoke up before I could throttle James.

"I'm with Max. Today has been the weirdest day of my life, and I'm not going to sit back and let some guy die!"

"You guys don't understand!" James yelled. "If you go in there, _you'll_ die! We have to get out of here now!"

"Well, I'm not leaving!" I screamed, and Monique nodded vehemently.

"My dad will be here any _minute_!" James hissed. "And you think he won't arrest us because I'm his son? No! He'll throw us all in a maximum security federal prison for the rest of our lives! He doesn't give a shit!" James pulled out some hair in frustration. He looked over at Jason and Celeste. "What are you doing?"

"We're busting Nick out," Jason said, picking up a locker door that had fallen off its hinges when the explosion had occurred. "Because after everything we went through, we became friends, whether you like it or not. And this is what friends do for each other."

James looked from me to Jason to the others before nodding. "I suppose you think I'm being a dick."

"More than ever, man." Jason piped up.

"Well... you're right. So what the hell's the plan?"

...

_**JASON**_

"We're going to make a battering ram out of all of these locker doors, and then we're going to bust the door open. According to my calculations, the air in there's bound to run out pretty soon. It's not a very big room, and there are no windows or any other source of fresh air." I said.

"Okay," James said. "Let's do it."

The police sirens outside got louder and louder. I winced as I saw the cruisers flying into the school parking lot through the cracked front doors. We only had a couple minutes, tops.

Max and I grabbed one side of the huge pile of locker doors, and James, Monique, and Celeste picked up the other side.

"On the count of three," Celeste said evenly. "One. Two. Three -"

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP AND DON'T MOVE!"

* * *

**How was everyone's Halloween and what did you dress up as, if you celebrated it? I dressed up as Nova from Sharknado (beach outfit plus the gun)... **

**Going back to the story, I just want to say I think everyone who's reviewed, favorited, followed, or even just clicked on this story is amazing. You guys are the reason people like me write. I know that's cliche, but I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it 100%. I'd hug you all if I could -it means that much to me. **

**But enough of that -there's still one more chapter. **

**And a QOTC for old times' sake -who's your favorite character and why? **


	32. Chapter 31

***** UPDATE: I had written earlier that Fang had found a packet in the drain, but it was an editing snafu on my part that I have no idea how or why it happened. He really picked up a ****_keyring_****, and I've changed the chapter accordingly. If this doesn't make sense to you, I would go back and read the last chapter, especially because I'm all about those cliffies and I want this chapter to make sense to you because it's the last one:) **

**Also, I'm back! I would never forget about this story. No matter how tediously long it takes me to update, this story is still important to me. But in the several weeks between updates, I was busy visiting colleges, applying to colleges, applying for scholarships, getting a job, babysitting my friend's two cats, looking wistfully at prom dresses online, counting down the seconds until graduation, working on six projects at the same time, studying for exams, and binge-watching ****_It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. _****So I've been busy... but this chapter will not disappoint. I hope.**

* * *

_**NICK**_

Clutching the keyring in my had, I looked around in desperation to find where it might have come from. If there was any way I could escape, any way I could live, I swore to God or whatever higher power that I would never, ever, ever complain again about my sorry ass of a dad, and I would never do drugs ever again, and I would never listen to songs that had swear words in them.

Well... the last one was debatable.

I pushed aside jugs of bleach and cartons of floor cleaner lying on the dusty shelves of the storage closet. The flames were growing higher and higher, and they had started to travel forward, so that the entire half of the room with the door was now a fiery inferno. The air duct, the one I had escaped out of last time I was trapped in here, was already engulfed in flames. I didn't think that the bleach was helping slow down the fire any. As a fireball roared past me, I flattened myself up against the far wall, ignoring the fact that it was covered in grime and dust and other disgusting things that basically proved that the janitor wasn't doing his job because he was an evil overlord who wanted to take over the world.

_This Could Be It. _

As the fire roared up towards me, I tried to flatten myself even more -with the result that my hand got caught in a hole in the wall. I turned ever so slightly to find a keyhole. It was disguised so cleverly as to look like just another patch of grime on the wall, but my heartbeat increased exponentially as I inserted the lone key on the keyring into the keyhole.

I held my breath as I heard a click. Pushing on the secret door, I found a staircase leading down towards the basement of a school.

_In case of a fire, get as low to the ground as possible. _

Didn't need to tell me twice.

...

Police Chief Griffiths glared at the five children handcuffed in front of him. They were all looking at him as though they wished for him to burst spontaneously into flames. Flames like the ones the firefighters were putting out behind him right now.

"So," he began. "Where to start? Arson. Kidnapping. Vandalizing and destroying school property. Escaping custody. Forget juvie. At this rate, you'll be lucky if you don't get put in Max for the next ten years of your lives.

"Dad," James began, but Chief Griffiths merely growled at his son to be quiet.

"What were you thinking? Did you honestly think you could get away with this? Actually, never mind that. What I want to know is why you came back _here_ after you ran out from the police station." The older man looked each and every single one of the children straight in the eye. "Why?"

Before any of them could answer him, his radio went off and Chief Griffiths swore loudly before leaving the kids to go answer it.

As soon as he left, they reconvened.

"Nick," Max's voice cracked from the corner. "Nick."

She struggled to stand up, impeded by her handcuffs, and suceeded just as the firefighters emerged from the cloud of smoke billowing out from what had used to be a functional storage closet. Her eyes widened as she glimpsed the destruction inside -everything had been completely burned and desecrated by the fire.

Max stumbled over to the nearest firefighter to overhear what they were saying.

"...Yeah, so it seems like there was a bleach explosion in there," one of them said. "Look at this shit. When I was in school, nothing like this ever happened."

"Did you find the kid's body, at least?" another firefighter asked, and Max's heart went cold.

The first one shook his head. "Nah. In fact, we didn't find anything except this." He held up a piece of black cloth and Max stifled a scream. "Poor kid. Tell the police it's a suicide -I don't want to deal with the extra paperwork."

"Wait!" Max said, her heart pounding in her ears. "Wait!" The two firefighters turned around, frowning. "He's... he's dead?"

The first firefighter looked at her sympathetically. "Listen, kid. I know it's hard, but you have to accept that he's in a better place." He looked around at the dust and smoke still billowing around the debris. "At least be reassured that he's not in a shithole."

...

_**MONIQUE**_

I glanced at Max, who had sunk back down to the ground, her eyes wide. She was still in shock, probably not believing what just happened. But I believed what happened. Nick was dead, we had been caught, and it was over.

I put my handcuffed hands on her shoulder, and winced as she shuddered. "Max..."

"How could he get away with this?" Max growled, looking up at me angrily. "How could that... that..." She trailed off, staring at the blackened, ashy pile of rubble that had once been a functional room. "How?" Max repeated, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

"I'm so sorry," I said, realizing that Nick's death had affected me, too. More than I would have thought. "For all of us."

"The police are never going to believe us," Jason said, coming over to where Max and I were huddled, near the site of the explosion. "Why would they? For all they care, we're just troublemaking teenagers."

"It's over," Celeste said, sitting down on our other side. "Completely over."

I nodded, my arms around Max, looking at the ground. Strangely, tears weren't pouring down my face, probably because I had never felt this bad in my life and my brain was likely shorting out.

"Well... you guys are wrong. It's not over. This might sound cheesy as hell, but we have each other. That's something we didn't have at the beginning of today," James said quietly. "And who brought us together? Who questioned the social hierarchy of high school? Who led us to have the most exciting day of our lives?" He made eye contact with me, and shrugged. "He'd want us to be happy. Probably. Still not sure if he's emo or not."

Max cracked a watery smile. "Probably."

"Most definitely. Why would he be listening to Nirvana at max volume otherwise?" I said, recalling my first meeting with Nick that morning. It was impossible to think that in the span of just a day, we had gone through all this. This morning seemed like a thousand days ago.

"This has definitely been the longest day of my life," Jason said, echoing my thoughts, and the rest of us nodded.

"No running," Angel said as we spotted Chief Griffiths in the distance, marching towards us with something that looked suspiciously like bloodlust in his eyes. "We go down together. For Nick."

"For Nick."

"What about me?" A familiar deep voice came from behind us, and Max screamed when she turned around to find a very singed, very bruised, very smiling... Nicholas Walker.

"Oh my _God_!" Max screamed, throwing herself at him. Her hands were still handcuffed, but she managed to throw her arms around him anyway. "Oh my _god _oh my god oh my god..."

"What happened? Did you die? Did you find, like, a bonus health pack in there or something?" Jason demanded, and I rolled my eyes.

"How did the firefighters not find you?" James asked Nick curiously. "They thought you died in the fire! All they found of yours was a piece of a black shirt..." He trailed off when he saw that Nick's shirt was torn.

Nick beamed, something which I had never seen him do. "I found a little something that just might save all our asses." He glanced at our handcuffs and winced. "How tacky. Max, are you going to let go of me so I can talk to the police and incriminate a certain evil scientist?"

Max's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Huh?"

...

Jeb Batchelder was arrested as he was hotwiring a car next to the highway, about twenty miles from Newton High School. He was sentenced to thirty years in maximum security on multiple charges -kidnapping, threatening minors, holding minors hostage, threatening murder, attempted murder, and the big one -for running a secret underground experiment on the school's children.

Hans Gunther-Hagen was also arrested for threatening and shooting a minor, but it became evident in his interview that he had been led on by the main culprit of it all. He was given six months in the local county jail.

At the last moment, Nick decided to throw in a count of pedophilia in his eyewitness testimony because he wanted Jeb to get out of their lives forever.

"So let me get this straight," Max said to him after he had relayed this highly improbable tale to his friends from detention. "Jeb was experimenting on us? Is that why he was all like, _I've got the data I need for my experiment_ -"

Nickwinced as the nurse dabbed at his gunshot wound. "Oh, yeah, that. Well... he was mad, I'm not going to lie. He was experimenting on us to gather information on our brainwaves to turn kids into mutants or something."

Celeste wrinkled her nose. "What the hell?"

Fang grinned at the nurse who had finished bandaging him up. "Thanks," To the others, he said, "Yeah. I know. Like I said, he was barking mad. His plans were to gather enough information to create an army of half-human, half-bird children to take over the world -"

"Okay, _now_ you're totally ripping off _Preys and Prejudice. _It's a videogame," Jason said to no one in particular.

"Bringing a fucking _whip_ to school," James shook his head. "Well... he's where he belongs now."

They heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind them, and the six friends turned around to see Chief Griffiths standing there awkwardly. "Um... you're all released. Sorry about any confusion."

James grinned at his dad, who paused a moment before giving his son a small smile back.

Nick glanced at the others, who nodded. "Actually, we have a small request. Gunther-Hagen -and so, by extention, Jeb -asked us to write an essay about who we think we are. Well..." He handed the police chief a sheet of folded, lined paper. "I think he'll like reading it very much."

...

**_JASON_**

The best part of the entire ordeal?

My new friends, who set me up with the best girlfriend I had ever had.

"Hey, Jason," Celeste said, ushering me over to her group of cheerleading friends the Monday after the fateful detention. She gestured to a gorgeous red-haired girl who smiled brightly at me. "This is Brigid. Brigid, this is Jason."

Brigid smiled at me. "Hey, Jason."

I went pale and tongue-tied. "Uh... hi." I managed after a while, turning as red as her hair.

"Brigid plays Call of Duty, too," Celeste says. "And she's the biggest Star Wars fan I know."

"Are you serious?" I asked her incredulously. Brigid just smiled and showed me her phone case. It was Princess Leia flying on top of a pepperoni pizza on her way to destroy the Death Triangle. "No way."

This girl was the one.

...

**_JAMES_**

"I have something to tell you," I said to Monique seriously, as we got out of my Range Rover together. My dad had bought it for me as a kind of apology for accidentally trying to arrest me with no probable cause. Just one of those things. "I've been thinking a lot this weekend about the baby, and being a father, and... I'm totally ready."

Monique looked incredulous. "You are?"

"Yeah. I know it'll be difficult, but we're going to graduate in a few months anyway, and I can get a job as a junior police officer to support us until the baby's old enough, and then we could both go back to college. It'll be tough, but I know we can get through anything after what happened."

Monique cupped her hand to her mouth, eyes glistening with tears. "That has got to be the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. But... honey... I'm not pregnant."

I dropped the car keys. "Huh?"

She took my hand in hers. "Oh, James. Boys are so clueless sometimes. How would I have been able to find out that I was pregnant a mere few hours after we did it? It usually takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for a pregnancy test to work. I took another test this morning and it came out negative."

I was shocked. "So... you're not pregnant?"

Monique shook her head, smiling. "Nope. But you're so sweet, and so kind, and you even made a plan for our nonexistent baby... which tells me you're a keeper." She planted one on my lips on the front steps of Newton and pulled me inside, smiling brightly.

...

**_MAX_**

I hovered outside Nick's locker, waiting for him to show up. We had been texting back and forth the entire weekend, and I was beyond eager to see him again. Even though we only officially started dating five minutes ago, I felt like I had known him for years.

"Guess who?" came a voice next to me, and I grinned. "You took forever."

"Sorry. I was busy telling my dealer that I'm never touching weed ever again. He looked like he was going to gut me, so I just kinda ran for it," Nick grinned, shifting his backpack on his shoulder.

"You're not?" I said, surprised.

"I don't want to fall into the path that everyone expects me to fall into. I want to go to college. Have a career. Maybe even one of those job things," He grinned crookedly at me. "So I've decided to clean up my act. In fact..." He grabbed my arm and pulled me over to where a group of guys were leaning against the water fountain. They nodded coolly to Nick. "Guys, this is my girlfriend," Nick said proudly. "We've been dating for exactly six minutes and thirty-two seconds, and I honestly think she's the one."

The one closest to me eyed me and snorted. "Well, if you're going to hang out with her, you don't have to be seen with us."

"Fair enough, Ratchet" Nick said brightly, clutching my arm even more tightly. "I'll see you around, then."

And with that, Nick's old friends looked disgusted and shuffled away from the water fountain, calling Nick obscene names that I didn't even realize existed.

"You just abandoned your entire group of friends," I said after a pause. "That was totally badass."

Nick grinned. "That's me in a nutshell. And, well... I've got new ones now." He waved to Jason, who was walking hand in hand with a really pretty red-haired cheerleader who, even as I watched, kissed him on the cheek.

I smiled. "Who would've thought that all this would arise out of one day?"

"Well... aren't you happy it did?"

I grasped his hand, never wanting to let go. "I've never been happier in my life. Now let's get to class."

...

_WHO WE THINK WE ARE: A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT _

_Well. Who are we? We're a cheerleader, a soccer jock, and a prep. We're a quiet outsider, a rebel, and a complete nerd. We're the kids who got put in detention because we did bad things one time, and we got busted. Whoops. _

_Our peers want us to conform to the social norms that befall each of our "groups", and society wants us to conform to the social norms that teenagers are supposed to do. Well, after today, we don't conform to either. We've all got secrets, and we've all made mistakes. And we wouldn't have noticed if we hadn't been locked in a library for an entire day and told not to talk to each other. Of course we were going to start talking to each other. It's reverse psychology. _

_So. You asked us who we thought we were, and we gave you the answer you wanted. _

_But in reality, we're so much more. _

_Sincerely, the kids who survived detention. _

* * *

**The end :) **

**Words cannot express how much I loved writing this, you guys.**

**The running theme in this story –besides the crazed wackos that try to kill innocent students –is that people don't really fit into their stereotypes. Stereotypes exist, and everyone's been a victim of them at some point in their life. **

**When I started this story, I just wanted it to be a more modern version of the Breakfast Club, but I guess my brain had other plans. You can never plan ahead in writing. Even if you do, it's _really_ hard to stick to that predetermined plot. You think up new ideas, better ideas, better versions of your old outlines… And if you're lucky, it'll turn out good. **

**What I really want to say is, thanks for sticking around for the trip. I would say ride, but that's a little too cliche. Nevertheless, it's been amazing.**

**Now that this is done, I'm going to take a little break from fanfiction. Maybe a couple months. I'll go back to regularly updating my other story, Bang Bang Boom (which has much of the same kind of humor as this and a lot of Fax!). After that... who knows? I don't know if I'll write more fanfictions but I do know that I'll never stop writing. It's so amazingly fun. And I even feel like I'm starting to get good at it... **

**Happy holidays, and thanks again for reading this story :) **

**\- theWeekendSquared **


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